With food prices soaring high and high, governments of various countries  have announced direct measures in some countries to restore stability in a rapidly deteriorating situation. Indian government has too appealed its people to step up the production of cereals, oilseeds and pulses. China, too, recently announced price control measures for poultry and dairy items.

Estimates of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) mention an average 37% price rise in 2007 for 60 internationally traded food items. UN agencies concerned with relief and other work recently indicated that they may have to curtail food supplies to areas affected by shortages, reducing the number of people reached, unless prices stabilize. This may prove disastrous, as the demand-supply mismatch has steadily worsened in recent years, meaning that people will now get less relief when they actually need more.

Especially in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan, millions of urban and rural poor are already feeling the pinch. Food riots have broken out in Pakistan over the shortage of wheat, as well as in Mexico. Even in the US, people below the poverty line, cannot afford fresh fruit and vegetables on a regular basis. In the UK, the price of wheat doubled from previous levels in 2007. The situation in West Africa causes concern, as production dwindles, against a backdrop of reduced supplies and income.

Recent reports of food scarcity in different parts of the country are a matter of worry. There is no shortage of vegetables as yet, because of high local production, but the prices have become too high for some people already. Mostly families in Bengal in the past had occurred use of high prices of rice and other commodities. It is not just a question of West Bengal alone. All over the world, UN sources say, the condition of the rural and urban poor and small/marginal farmers and the landless people will worsen in the medium term.

Already in some countries, some people who used to have three meals a day have resorted to having only one major meal. There are several, including global warming forcing changes in the crop patterns, rising fuel prices, changing eating habits and inflation, in the wake of oil price hikes. The recent increase in the price oil in international markets meant that the cost of carrying food from one place to another also rose.

Areas once known as major production centers, such as parts of Australia have been seared by prolonged droughts, cutting down wheat production by half in recent years. In addition, the demand for more meat has risen steadily all over the world as living standards rose for major seg-ments of the population. While India and Egypt have cut down on rice exports, China has introduced price control and restrictions on the movement of cereals, cooking oil, meat, milk and eggs from region to region, to stave off developing shortages. Economy analysts do not hold out hopes for short-term improvements in the situation. If present trends continue, to protect the poor, the urgent revival of the public distribution system may become unavoidable.