Recent falls in food prices are no more than a temporary reprieve and are set to resume their upward trend once the world emerges from the current economic downturn.
This is one of the conclusions of a new Chatham House report, The Feeding of the Nine Billion: Global Food Security for the 21st Century, which urges policymakers to start planning now for a future 'food crunch'.
The report assesses the outlook for global food supply in a long term context of expanding population, increasing affluence, climate change concerns and growing resource scarcity.
The report recommends investing more in agriculture, with a focus on small farmers; improving importer countries' security of supply through changes to trade rules; and a new 'International Energy Agency For Food' to manage a global system of food reserves and help protect against future price spikes.
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