Export bans seen compounding Asia food insecurity

By Robert Birsel

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Rising food prices have added $160 million (80 million pounds) to the cost of the U.N. food agency's Asia programme but export bans by some countries in response mean supplies can be impossible to get hold of, a U.N. official said on Tuesday.

World prices of food such as wheat and rice have surged in recent months because of flat yields, growing disposable incomes, high fuel prices driving up costs and bad weather, said the U.N. World Food Programme's Asia director, Tony Banbury.

The result means millions more people across Asia are facing food insecurity, the inability to get sufficient, nutritious food to meet dietary needs, with almost half the population of Pakistan now "food insecure", he said.

But the rising prices have also led to fears about supplies and some big producers, such as wheat producer Pakistan and rice grower Vietnam, have banned exports to soften the impact of higher prices on their people.

"We, as a significant buyer of food commodities in Asia, are experiencing not just higher prices, although that's had a huge impact on us, $160 million, but real difficult challenges in buying food, in actually getting it," Banbury told a news conference.

"Food exporters are facing this problem and are cutting off their exports and are making it very hard for other countries ... or an organisation like WFP, to buy in the open market."

While some countries have banned exports others have imposed commercial export bans, meaning only the government can export.

Other countries have imposed high trade barriers, such as high tariffs and restrictions on export licenses, so while exports were still technically permitted, it was very hard to get supplies out of the country, he said.