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World's breadbasket faces food crisis Food Shortages, An Unthinkable Phenomenon In US, Have Hit Many Parts Of The Country Mountain View (California): Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks, the New York Sun reported on Monday.

The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday proposed to establish a National Food Security Council for planning and monitoring the production and supply of major food items. The leaders of the FBCCI, country's apex trade body, made the proposal when they called on chief adviser of the military backed interim government Fakhruddin Ahmed at the latter's office. During the meeting, they also put forward some recommendations for expediting the businesses growth and creating employments in the country.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has accepted Bangladesh's proposal for forming a task force to address the current global food crisis particularly as rice shortages triggered a stir. The proposal, placed by foreign adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury during the current UNCTAD XII session in Accra, the capital of Ghana, was enthusiastically received by the participating delegations.

"Banning exports and going after traders is not going to prevent shooting up of prices. This is based on a false assumption. And planting Jatropha instead of soyabean will only end up tripling of food prices,' Vandana Shiva, eminent environmentalist said. Substituting food crops with alternatives such as jatropha will only end up in the extinction of agriculture she said. Shiva blamed the build up of fossil fuel infrastructure for the rise in prices.

The world faces a "silent tsunami' of soaring food prices and more must be done to help secure future supply, the U.N. food agency said Tuesday as experts gathered in London for a special summit on the problem. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said an extra 100 million people who previously did not require help could now not afford to buy food. It said the soaring prices threatened anti-poverty and health improvement initiatives in the world's poorest nations and left a $755-million hole in the organization's $2.9-billion budget.

The unending food crisis may take a turn for the worse owing to an estimated poor wheat yield in Pakistan. According to Business Recorder (April 18), "the wheat output is likely to fall to 20-22 million tonnes as against the target of 24 million tonnes, necessitating imports of nearly 3 million tonnes this season.' Last year Pakistan had to import 1.7 million tonnes of wheat because of an acute shortage of this essential commodity.

The Coimbatore-based Sabols, a leading packaged drinking water company in South India, is repositioning itself as Sabols Foods India Pvt Ltd to tap the growing ready-to-eat and ready-to-cook food market in the country. "We want to be a pan Indian company catering to the discerning, quality conscious consumers across the country,' KM Senthil, chairman said.

As Union commerce minister Kamal Nath studies India's negotiation dockets in preparation for a mid-May World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meet in Geneva, a sort of last-ditch attempt to strike a Doha Round deal before a change of US leadership, some voices have emerged in favour of softening the country's stance on farm sector issues.

With global tensions over food supplies mounting, prices of world staples rice and corn surged on Tuesday amid strong demand and concerns over slow planting of the new US corn crop. Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank warned Asian countries against export controls, and the Inter-American Development Bank said the food-versus-fuel debate had changed the way it evaluates financing of biofuel projects that could siphon off staples like corn or soybeans.