A UN report said that the world is likely to suffer from more volatile food prices due to rising population. It also specified that India could lose USD 49 billion (more than Rs 3 lakh crore) in GDP if global food prices double in future.
"In the future, the world will likely suffer from higher and more volatile food prices as a result of a growing imbalance between the supply and demand of food. Rising populations and incomes will intensify the demand for food while climate change and resource scarcity will disrupt food production," it said.
The UN Environment Programme-Global Footprint Network report, titled ‘How food prices link environmental constraints to sovereign credit risk’ looks at 110 countries to assess which ones face the worst risk from an imbalance in food supply and demand. While China and India would have the highest loss in terms of money, five African countries face the highest loss in terms of percentage of GDP – Benin, Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal and Ghana.