Arutz Sheva: Food Prices Up, Food Exports Down
by Hillel Fendel (IsraelNN.com)
Monday, July 07, 2008A five-year running climb in food exports has been reversed, due to the weak dollar and high food production costs. Israel's food exports registered an impressive 70% rise between 2003-2007, but the trend has now been reversed. Food exports stood at $214 million in the first quarter of 2008, a 3.2% drop compared with the same period in 2007.
Roni Kovarovsky, Chairman of the Food Industries Union in the Industrialists Association and president of Coca Cola in Israel, says the reasons for the decline are twofold: The weakened dollar, and the increased costs of raw materials. At the same time, food imports grew by 9.6% in the first quarter, to $424 million - leading to a food industry deficit of $210 million. Hardest-hit, of course, are those who earn the least. Milka Benziman, coordinator for Yad Eliezer, Israel's largest anti-hunger organization, says that for the first time in memory, "we have had to tell hungry families that count on us that there will be no food packages this month."
Milka explained that Yad Eliezer services some 14,000 families, of which over 9,000 receive basic monthly food packages worth between 200 and 300 shekels each. Other families receive baby food, "big brother" help, medicines, and more. The rise in food prices has dropped Yad Eliezer's capabilities by about 25%. Rice and pasta, for instance, have each more than doubled in its dollar price, while cooking oil has risen from $1.16 per liter to $2.03. "We cannot allow ourselves to be overdrawn in the bank," Milka says, "as the money is not our own; these are public funds. So we can only give as much as we have. We have cut down on manpower, we have cut down on baby food - from six boxes of Materna, to three - and we continue to rely on youths to go house-to-house and collect some of the food we give... Last month, in consultation with rabbis and others, we decided not to cut down on the size of the packages themselves, but rather to distribute only in certain areas of the country. This month, we have to do the same."
As a recent Aish.com article stated, "Milka's life is full of people: downtrodden, despairing, impoverished people. [Her] days are a parade of one heartbreaking case after another." She expressed hope and confidence that once people recognize the dire need of underprivileged families, they will open their hearts and help as they can.
