PDS Model UN Research

Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject of debate.

Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject of debate. Initial causes of the late 2006 price rises included unseasonable droughts in grain producing nations and rising oil prices. Oil prices further heightened the costs of fertilizers, food transport, and industrial agriculture. Other causes of the food crisis may be the increasing use of biofuels in developed countries, and an increasing demand for a more varied diet, meat in particular, across the expanding middle-class populations of Asia. These factors, coupled with falling world food stockpiles have all contributed to the dramatic worldwide rise in food prices. Long-term causes of the food crisis remain a topic of debate. These may include structural changes in trade and agricultural production, agricultural price supports and subsidies in developed nations, diversions of food commodities to high input foods and fuel, commodity market speculation, and climate change.

136%, maize by 125% and soybeans by 107%. In late April 2008, rice prices hit 24

 statement from the Israeli foreign ministry said: "The government of Israel expresses sadness and disappointment over the decision by the Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a month before he steps down."Recognition of a Palestinian state is a breach of the interim agreement which was signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1995 which said that the issue of the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be discussed and resolved through negotiations," it said.

Israel has expressed disappointment at Brazil's decision to recognise a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, saying it flew in the face of efforts to negotiate a peace deal.