Agri investments in developing nations remain short – FAO

Despite projected increases in food requirements of developing countries as populations grow, their investments in the agriculture sector continue to lag behind the demand, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday. "Developing countries only allocate 5 percent of their national budgets to the sector, instead of 10 percent, despite [their] contribution to gross domestic product, exports, and the balance of payments," FAO director-general Jacques Diouf said in a statement. The Philippines, a country classified by the World Bank as a "lower-middle income economy," has allocated P38 billion for the Department of Agriculture in 2011. This amount is less than 5 percent of the P1-trillion budget of the Philippines for the whole year. Diouf said the expected world population of 9.1 billion in 2050 will require a 70-percent increase in global food production and a 100-percent hike in developing countries. Food prices rising Earlier, the World Bank warned food prices rising to "dangerous levels" could expand the ranks of the poor in lower-income and middle-income countries such as the Philippines. The World Bank noted that rising food prices have driven an estimated 44 million people into poverty in developing countries since last June as food costs continue to near 2008 highs. "Global food prices are rising to dangerous levels and threaten tens of millions of poor people around the world. The price hike is already pushing millions of people into poverty, and putting stress on the most vulnerable, who spend more than half of their income on food," said World Bank Group president Robert Zoellick. In its latest edition of Food Price Watch, the World Bank's food price index rose 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011. The index is 29 percent above its level a year earlier, and is only 3 percent below its 2008 peak. Meanwhile, the FAO Food Price index rose for the eighth consecutive month, averaging 236 points in February 2011, up 2.2 percent from January and the highest in both real and nominal terms since January 1990, the index was launched. — JE/VS, GMA News