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Wheat prices have risen sharply in recent months
Record wheat production is expected in 2008, the FAO said.
The amount of money being spent globally on importing food is set to top $1 trillion (£528bn) in 2008, an influential report estimates.
Soaring food prices are the cause of the huge bill – likely to be up 26% on the 2007 total – said the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The most economically vulnerable countries will bear the biggest burden, the report said, with costs rising 40%.
But the FAO said there were signs that some food prices were starting to fall.
However, it said prices were “unlikely” to return to the low levels of previous years – largely because of the higher costs associated with food production, primarily fuel.
The need to replenish stocks and the expected greater consumption – or utilisation – of crops, meant that demand would stay high, the report added.
“The most influential development in pushing up international prices of basic food has been the low level of exportable supplies resulting from utilization outstripping production for several crops in a number of major exporting countries.”
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