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 Bangladeshi Prime Minister Fakhruddin Ahmed has called for the creation of a global food bank to help alleviate the world food crisis. "We have suggested that a Food Bank could allow countries facing a short-term shortfall in production to borrow food grains on preferential terms," he said at the UN General Assembly in New York last week.
Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed stated: "Once they overcame the shortfall, these countries could return the quantum to the food bank." "We could also explore the possibility of determining special drawing rights for each country, using criteria such as population, level of poverty and annual variation in their level of food production." "Domestic rice prices spiked by nearly 60 per cent during the year through February 2008, against the backdrop of two devastating floods and a tropical cyclone that caused large-scale devastation of one of our key harvests." "For a country like Bangladesh, where roughly 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and where poor households spend as much as 70 per cent of their income on food items, such a steep increase in food prices has had significant adverse effects on food security, poverty and human development." The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has already proposed a regional food bank, which would involve Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. SAARC agriculture ministers will also hold an "extraordinary meeting" in New Delhi in November to discuss the "emerging global situation of reduced food availability and worldwide rise in food prices."
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