Urgent steps needed to curb rising food and other commodity prices, UN warns

From the United Nations News Centre:

31 January 2011 – Senior United Nations officials today called for urgent steps to rein in the rising prices for basic farm produce, petroleum and raw industrial materials whose volatility hits the world’s poorest people the hardest.    

“Such volatility has huge negative impacts on vulnerable groups, such as low-income households in developing countries, for whom food expenditure can account for up to 80 per cent of household budgets,” UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi told his agency’s second Global Commodities Forum in Geneva.

Read the whole story at: Urgent steps needed to curb rising food and other commodity prices, UN warns.