France, the United States and G20 president Mexico will hold a conference call at the end of August to discuss whether an emergency international meeting is required to tackle soaring grain prices caused by the worst U.S. drought in half a century.
A French agriculture ministry official said the call would decide whether to convene the first meeting of the G20's Rapid Response Forum. The body was created last year to promote early discussion among decision-makers about abnormal market conditions with the aim of avoiding unilateral action.
"If the situation requires it, a meeting of the Rapid Response Forum could be called as soon as the start of September," the official said, adding the forum could hold its discussions in person or by a conference call.
"The aim is to talk about the situation and avoid measures like export embargoes which would be damaging for everyone," he said.
Benchmark Chicago corn climbed to an all-time high on Friday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its production estimate by 17 percent, intensifying fears the world is headed for a repeat of the 2008 food price crisis.
2008 was brought on by speculation. 2012 will be brought on by serious lack of supply. The US is still the breadbasket of the world and as it is we have people going hungry in this country every day. With the drought pushing prices for all food up this fall, it's going to be even harder to feed the country in a healthy manner.
Something else that we need to have a political discussion about, but won't or can't thanks to another monolithic lobby preventing oversight, in this case Big Agra...not to mention the whole climate change issue.
It's getting old.
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