ADB meets, demands global action on food inflation

By Sebastian Tong and Andrew Hay

MADRID (Reuters) - The Asian Development Bank called on Saturday for immediate action from global governments to combat soaring food prices and pledged fresh financial aid to help feed the Asia Pacific region's poorest nations.

"The food crisis calls for immediate response of governments and the international community," the ADB concluded in a 15-page report detailing its planned response to soaring global food prices that have jumped 43 percent in the year through March.

"The ADB's short term response will include targeted interventions to protect the food entitlements of the most vulnerable groups and income and livelihood programs for the poor to mitigate the immediate impacts of the crisis," the report said.

"ADB will also consider budget support to hardest-hit countries to alleviate the fiscal pressures and assist imports of food grains and agricultural inputs," said the report, which gave no detail or figures on the size of the support program.

ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda told a news conference in Madrid, where the bank is holding its four-day annual meeting, that total lending "could be sizeable, but not enormous" and would depend on the scale of requests it received for help.

"We are getting in touch with potential recipients of this kind of assistance and we will soon come up with appropriate figures," Kuroda said, citing Bangladesh and Tajikistan as being among several countries that appear to be seriously affected by rising food prices.

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

The ADB's call came as ministers from Southeast Asian nations agreed at a meeting in Indonesia to cooperate to tackle rice prices that have almost tripled this year and as the African Development Bank (AfDB) pledged to add $1 billion to its loan program to address the food crisis in African countries.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to two thirds of the world's poor with 1.5 billion people -- three times the population of Europe -- living on less than $2 a day.

Rice is a staple food in most Asian nations and any shortage could lead to unrest and instability, governments are extremely sensitive to its price.

The five mainland Southeast Asian nations produce a combined 60 million tonnes of milled rice each year, about 14 percent of world output. But only Thailand, the world's number one rice exporter, and Vietnam have major surpluses.

Countries including India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil have imposed curbs on food exports in a bid to secure domestic supplies and limit inflation.

The ADB report blamed such market interventions for increasing price volatility, arguing that they had reduced current supply and increased uncertainty about future supplies.

Global food prices, based on United Nations records, rose 35 percent in the year to the end of January, markedly accelerating an upturn that began, gently at first, in 2002. Since then, prices have risen 65 percent.

Waves of discontent have been felt. Violent protests hit Cameroon and Burkina Faso in February. Protesters rallied in Indonesia recently and media reported deaths by starvation. In the Philippines, fast-food chains were urged to cut rice portions to counter a surge in prices.