MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Food prices set to keep rising forecasts head of FAO

Current falls in commodity and food prices could be temporary and have not reduced concerns over their impact on developing nations, the head of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Friday.

Jacques Diouf, who called a food price crisis summit in June, said that although commodity prices had eased, they were still at very high levels compared to where they were in 2006. "Therefore they are still the subject of the different concerns that have been expressed over the past months" added Diouf during a conference in Paris. Agricultural commodity prices have staged steep corrections this summer, with corn, soybeans and cattle prices off record highs seen in July. Commodity prices were likely to remain "very high" for the foreseeable future despite earlier expectations that there would be some leveling off in the values of key products, he said. Rising food prices over the last couple of years have sparked widespread protests and even riots in some of the world's worst affected spots. The FAO has said many factors have fuelled the rise, including unfavourable weather conditions in some big commodity-producing regions and swelling demand from fast-growing countries such as China. Turning to the issue of speculation on commodity markets, Diouf said speculative bets on the direction of some funds were unethical but unavoidable given that they were allowed by current rules and regulations. "These rules should be reviewed," he said.