Factors in Climbing Food Prices - A Baker’s Dozen

Where today’s high food prices are concerned, there are 13 villains of the piece: the structural and circumstantial causes associated with supply and demand, according to the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA), which says that to tackle them, regional cooperation is essential. 'Action must be taken on different fronts, with political coordination to defend regional interests,' the permanent secretary of SELA, José Rivera, told IPS ahead of a regional meeting which discussed the problems last weekend. The goal of the meeting was to arrive at a common Latin American and Caribbean position, prior to the High Level Conference on World Food Security taking place in Rome Tuesday to Thursday. 'A host of meetings are happening, because there is awareness that the food crisis hits the poor the hardest,' Gerard Gómez, the head of the United Nations Regional Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, told IPS. An additional 10 million people could join the 80 million in this region who already cannot afford a minimum diet, said Gómez, citing a study by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).