World Bank president Robert Zoellick has estimated that doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty. He said the food crisis could mean seven lost years in the fight against worldwide poverty. The World Bank’s first response is a $10 million grant for feeding programmes in Haiti, where food riots have just forced the removal of the country’s prime minister. This is about ensuring that future generations don’t pay a price too, Zoellick said. We have to put our money where our mouth is now so that we can put food into hungry mouths. It’s as stark as that, he added. Happily, the bankers have appealed for $500 million in donations by May 1 to re-stock the UN’s depleted World Food Programme. They have also called on the oil-exporting countries to invest more of their windfall earnings in Africa. It is now time for a new coordinated global response to deal with spiraling food prices exacerbating shortages, hunger and malnutrition around the globe in countries like Bangladesh. The crisis also has highlighted the need to conclude a long-awaited deal in the Doha global trade talks, which would cut distorting agricultural subsidies and open markets for food imports. The new deal should focus not only on hunger and malnutrition, access to food and its supply, but also the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, the marginalisation of women and others, and economic resiliency and growth. Trade barriers on food hurt the poor and deter farm production. A fairer and more open global trading system for agriculture would give farmers in developing countries more opportunities and confidence to expand food output. Around the world, protests against higher food costs are increasing and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports. The World Bank estimated 33 countries could face social unrest because of higher food and energy prices. With shifting population patterns, higher energy prices and demand for biofuels draining maize stocks, no one country can deal with the problem alone. In Bangladesh, the caretaker government is handling temporary food shortages commendably.

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