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WFP cuts school meals as food crisis grows

The worsening global crisis over food prices has forced the World Food Programme to cut the provision of school meals to some of the world's poorest children, the Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Josette Sheeran, the WFP’s executive director, was reported as saying that the price of basic foods was rising so rapidly that a shortfall

in financing for its food relief programmes had grown from US$500 million to $755 million in less than two months.

A programme providing meals for 450,000 Cambodian children has already been suspended, the report said. A similar programme in Kenya, serving 1.2 million children, is facing cuts of nearly 50%.

The crisis is partly being driven by rising demand from consumers in fast developing countries such as China and India, at a time when food production is being hit by climate change.

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