Russian Agriculture Minister Alexey Gordeev's appetite for government support grows along with expectations of falling world food prices.
Photo: Vasily Shaposhnikov
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Food Security Doctrine in Works
Agriculture Minister Alexey Gordeev has reported that a food security doctrine will be developed and submitted to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by the end of the year. The need for such a doctrine, he explained, is due to “the tense situation on the world food market that, experts say, may last for the next decade.” The food crisis was one of the main topics at this summer’s G8 conference and is being discussed in a number of international organizations.
As the world economic crisis increases and the growth rate of the world economy slows, the growth of food prices is also slowing. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the UN Food and Agriculture published the “Agriculture Outlook 2008-2017” last week, which forecast a significant decrease in food prices in the next ten years, although they will remain higher on average than in the previous decade.
“The dramatic increase in prices since 2005/06 is partly the result of adverse weather conditions in major grain producing regions in the world... In a context of low global stocks, these developments alone would have triggered strong price reactions. These conditions are not new; they have happened in the past and prices have come down once more normal conditions prevail and supply responds over time. The Outlook sees no reason to believe that this will not recur again over the next few years,” the report states. The crisis of the summer of 2008 was much less severe than that of the mid-1970s, the report notes.
The OECD and FAO forecasts for larger crops this year have proven accurate so far. The Copa-Cogeca union of European farmers has announced that the grain harvest will be 20 percent larger than last years. Gordeev predicted a 100-million ton harvest in Russia and the largest since 1992.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Sep. 29, 2008
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