A new report issued by the World Bank exam­ines food prices across the globe. The bank says that food prices are ris­ing and are close to return­ing to the high prices seen in 2008 that trig­gered riots around the globe.

From this mon­i­tor arti­cle that we found at All Africa, writer Mar­tin Luther Oketch describes the report’s details.

“Future prices are expected to remain higher than in the 1990s and are likely to be more volatile. Higher price volatil­ity may dampen sup­ply response to higher aver­age prices, neg­a­tively impact­ing both poor pro­duc­ers and con­sumers. In addi­tion, the finan­cial cri­sis has slowed down both growth and trade,” the World Bank report reads in part.

The World Bank explains that global food prices more than dou­bled from 2006 to mid-2008, and then declined by 30 — 40 per cent through to the end of May 2009 before begin­ning to rise again.

In Uganda, for instance, food prices have been ris­ing since the first quar­ter of 2008 to-date. Last Month, Uganda Bureau of Sta­tis­tics said the annual food crops infla­tion rate for the year end­ing Sep­tem­ber 2009 went up to 49.5 per cent from 31.9 per cent in August, plac­ing the blame on reduced sup­ply and high demand for Uganda’s food stuffs from the neigh­bour­ing coun­tries thus push­ing Uganda’s infla­tion to 14.5 per cent.

The chang­ing global con­text adds new urgency. Sud­den increases in food prices in 2008 drove an esti­mated 100 mil­lion more peo­ple into poverty. Some 800 mil­lion peo­ple in the world were mal­nour­ished even before the food and eco­nomic cri­sis hit.

The World Bank points out that the sea­sonal nature of agri­cul­ture resulted in a lagged pro­duc­tion response. Other than sea­sonal nature, the World Bank also sin­gles out lower remit­tances and migra­tion back to rural areas which have low­ered pur­chas­ing power and pres­sured house­hold bud­gets. “Resul­tant declines in gov­ern­ment rev­enue have curbed the abil­ity of gov­ern­ments to respond,” the report reads in part.

Global poverty and hunger were steadily declin­ing prior to the onset of the food cri­sis in 2007. The num­ber of peo­ple suf­fer­ing from hunger and poverty is now esti­mated by the United Nation’s Food and Agri­cul­tural Orga­ni­za­tion to exceed one billion.