Soaring food prices a wake-up call

EUROPEAN Union farm leaders have warned that surging food prices represent a wake-up call for member-state Governments.

COPA-COGECA, representing farmers and co-ops, issued a common declaration about food prices to the EU leaders as they began a two-day summit in Brussels.

The farm leaders claimed the recent surge in prices is the result of production no longer keeping pace with demand, following years of depressed world commodity prices and lack of investment in agriculture.

They said that in the EU, policy reforms have left producers and consumers much more exposed to world market instability than at any time during the previous 50 years. The recent volatility in milk prices is just a first indication of what is to come.

“Farmers are not even getting the benefit of recent price rises for some foods because of soaring costs,” said Pekka Pesonen, the COPA-COGECA secretary general. He said the situation of farmers in the poorer developing countries is even worse.

“There is something fundamentally wrong when half of the 860 million hungry in the world are also farmers,” he said.

Mr Pesonen said there must be a recognition that the era of cheap food is over. If supply is to keep pace with demand, policy makers need to ensure farmers throughout the world have the incentive and the means to produce and to invest.