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In the past year food prices have climbed steadily the world over, leading to warnings from the World Food Program that some states are heading towards being unable to afford to feed themselves. For the Asia Pacific region, the commodity of greatest concern is rice. The cost of rice is now at a 20-year high, after prices rose by around 50 percent last year.

Presenter - Girish Sawlani
Speaker - Paul Risley, Asia spokesperson, World Food Programme; Professor Beth Woods, chairperson, International Rice Research Institute and president of policy advisory council, Australia Centre of International Agriculture Research; Duncan Macintosh, spokesperson, International Rice Research Institute

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People in several South Asian countries are struggling to cope with a severe shortage of affordable wheat and rice.

In Pakistan there have been queues for wheat and flour outside shops in towns across the country, and flour prices
have shot up. Last week Afghanistan appealed for foreign help to combat its wheat shortage, and Bangladesh says it's facing a crisis over rice supplies. Even India, with its surging economy, has seen a slump in food production, as millions of poor farmers struggle with high debt and crop failures.

Presenter - Joanna McCarthy
Speaker - Bettina Luescher from the UN World Food Program in New York

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You might think that rice is a pretty popular dish in Japan, but over the past 60 years, the amount of rice in the average diet has gone down by half. As a result the price that farmers can get for their crops has gone down, and young people from rural areas often move to the cities looking for work rather thank following in their parents' footsteps on the farm.

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Climate change, water shortages and the demands on land are putting new pressures on Asia's rice-growing societies. One answer to the growing difficulties with rice production may come in the form of a potato. The United Nations has
declared next year the International Year of the Potato.

Presenter - Graeme Dobell
Speaker - Dr Pamela Anderson from the International Potato Centre

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Dairy experts are warning that the world is facing a global milk shortage. The price of milk has doubled in two years, and that's been blamed on several factors, such as climate change, trade policies and the overall strength of the global economy. Milk is increasingly being included in people's food groups as developing nations get richer, at a time when global production of milk is falling.

Presenter - Girish Sawlani
Speaker - Michael Harvey, international analyst, Dairy Australia; Merrit Cluff, senior economist for commoditites, Food and Agriculture Organisation

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Researchers have developed a new strain of rice that may be able to survive the floods that can destroy crops in flood-prone places like Bangladesh and India. The International Rice Research Institute says the new type of rice can survive for up to two weeks when submerged in water.