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    June 17, 2011

UN Report: Higher Food Prices Here to Stay

   Joe DeCapua
   Photo: Worldwatch Institute
   Vegetables on display at a market in Zanzibar. Research shows that most
   African food producers are women, but that their output is much lower
   than what it should be.

   Higher food prices and volatile commodity markets are here to stay.
   That's the conclusion of a new report from the U.N. Food and
   Agriculture Organization [FAO] and the Organization for Economic
   Cooperation and Development [OECD].

   The report said a good harvest in the coming months 'may keep prices
   below the extreme levels seen earlier this year.' But over the next 10
   years, cereal prices could be 20 percent higher and meat prices 30
   percent higher than in the last decade.

   'We've been saying this probably for the last two or three years, since
   the run-up in prices in 2008,' said Merritt Kluff, senior economist in
   the FAO's Trade and Markets Division.

   Driving factors