World Food Day: Food prices - From Crisis to Stability. 16th October 2011

As events around the world get underway to mark World Food Day 2011, Emile Frison, Director General, Bioversity International, speaks about this year's theme: 'Food Prices - from Crisis to Stability':

"One might ask: how are food prices linked to agricultural biodiversity? Well there is a link. Indeed, the biggest impact of the price spikes of 2007-2008 has been on who people rely mainly on the major staples, rice, wheat and maize. Smallholder farmers whose livelihoods depend on a larger range of different crops and animals have suffered less.

But in addition, while stabilizing the price of the major staples will contribute to making them affordable to more people, it does not address the serious problem of malnutrition, which is affecting over 2 billion people in the world. Tackling this will require a much better use of agricultural biodiversity, and this is something Bioversity is contributing to through its research."

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