January 25, 2011

Ukraine farm minister suggests creating global grain reserve

The World Bank and other global organisations should work to set up a global grain reserve to stabilize fluctuations of prices, according to Ukraine's Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk.

Following are translated comments from a meeting of agriculture ministers and a press briefing in Berlin today:

"The World Bank should launch an initiative to create a world grain bank. This would create a reserve. This would help avoid situations like we've seen last year."

"The World Bank and other international institutions must stand ready to provide specific funds to safeguard global food supply. We believe these are measures that need to be taken to avoid unrest and to avoid fear. What's necessary is to undertake more steps to avoid this fluctuation.

"We have to create the necessary structures; we need to have the necessary information on production and consumption. We are willing to actively participate in this process and to consider such a reserves bank for agriculture. We would like to avoid the problem that we have at the moment."