UN chief tackles food crisis head-on

Straits Times 30 Apr 08;

Task force set up to find medium- and long-term solutions to stave off shortages
BERNE - UNITED Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon yesterday ordered a top-level task force to take on the global crisis caused by rising food prices and urged key producer nations to end export bans.

'The first and immediate priority that we all agree is that we must feed the hungry,' Mr Ban said after a meeting of 27 international agency heads.

Food price rises have caused hunger, riots and hoarding in poor countries.

Mr Ban urged countries such as Brazil and Egypt to immediately drop export restrictions on certain foods and commodities, saying they have reduced supplies and contributed to price hikes.

Argentina, Brazil, Vietnam, India and Egypt have all limited the export of certain produce in order to ensure food security for their populations.

UN agency chiefs, meanwhile, have agreed on a series of measures for the medium and long term. The first priority will be meeting the US$755 million (S$1 billion) shortfall in funding for the World Food Programme (WFP).

'Without full funding of these emergency requirements we risk again the spectre of widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale,' Mr Ban told reporters in the Swiss capital, where the agency chiefs have been meeting.

WFP head Josette Sheeran said: 'We have pledges of US$471 million, but only US$18 million is cash in hand. We can't procure food until we have cash in hand.'

Also urgent is the need to ensure food for tomorrow by supporting farmers in poorer countries, Mr Ban said.

'In addition to increasing food prices, we see at the same time farmers in developing countries planting less, producing less, due to the escalating costs of fertiliser and energy,' he said.

'We must make every effort to support those farmers so that in the coming year we do not see even more severe food shortages.'

Mr Ban identified a number of causes of the food crisis. These included climate change, long spells of drought, changing consumption patterns in major developing countries and the planting of crops for biofuel.

In just one example of the scale of the problem, the WFP warned that soaring rice prices have forced it to stop supplying free breakfasts to 450,000 poor Cambodian schoolchildren.

The agency said the programme was suspended because it could not afford to pay the current high prices for rice, which accounts for 76 per cent of the school breakfasts.

Mr Ban said new measures had to go further than just providing emergency food relief.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has developed a US$1.7 billion plan to provide seeds for farmers in the world's poorest countries, he said.

'We must make every effort to support those farmers,' he said.

The UN chief said he hoped world leaders would attend a June meeting in Rome to find ways to alleviate the food crisis. He said the international community had not listened to warnings from the FAO and others.

'This time the whole United Nations is now leading this campaign to address this issue,' he said.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick, who also attended the meeting, said that 100 million people have been pushed into poverty over the past two years.

'This is not a natural disaster,' he said. 'I think we've now got the attention of the world community. We can't just replay this year after year after year.'

ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE