UN plan to increase food supplies

BBC News 6 Jun 08;

Global food production must be doubled by 2030 and farmers in poor countries better supported, a UN summit on the current food crisis has concluded.

Leaders from 181 countries made the commitment in Rome at the close of a three-day summit on food shortages.

They also agreed to bolster humanitarian interventions to help deal with shortages and soaring prices.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned up to £20bn a year was needed to alleviate the crisis.

Government representatives and aid agencies welcomed the concluding statement as a signal that agriculture - particularly the support of small farmers in the developing world - was now firmly back on the agenda.

"For the first time agriculture has been put at the centre of the world stage. For years it has been on the periphery," South Africa's Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana told the BBC.

The summit participants stated that the reality of 862 million people worldwide continuing to be malnourished was wholly unacceptable given the resources available.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, said the adoption of a final declaration was "a sign that the international community is speaking with one voice".

But the summit, which was threatened to be overshadowed by the controversial presence of invited heads of state including Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, was not without its critics.

Representatives from non-governmental organisations complained they were excluded from discussions.

ActionAid's food and hunger policy adviser, Magda Kropiwnicka, said the concluding statement lacked concrete proposals.

"There are no quantifiable financial commitments. Apart from the existing UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) funds, no money has been given to address the key problem of boosting capacity," she said.

But Oxfam's Alexander Woolcombe told the BBC that the very recognition of agriculture's role is a vital step.

"There needs to be more focus on agriculture, not less, and we finally seem to be getting recognition of that."

Biofuel debate

The FAO, which has underlined that the summit did not seek to secure financial pledges, has said it needs a tenfold increase in its budget - to some $30bn a year - to help farmers grow food for their communities and countries.



The issue of biofuels was divisive during the summit.

Some UN officials have said the rapid growth of the sector may have triggered as much as 30% of global price inflation, by diverting food crops to fuel use and tightening supply.

However, the US - the world's biggest producer of ethanol - insists it is responsible for just 3% of price rises.

Countries finally agreed, somewhat tepidly, that the industry provided both "challenges and opportunities" which needed to be investigated further.

During his address, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva passionately defended the potential of ethanol from sugarcane.

He highlighted the fact that a large portion of the country's transport is powered by sugarcane grown on just 1% of the country's arable land.

Analysts agree that sugarcane ethanol is a greener and more efficient way of producing fuel than the heavily subsidised US corn industry.

Mr De Schutter said the decision by both the US and EU to increase biofuels targets sent a "dangerous signal" to the market which would only fuel speculation on commodities.

Leaders at UN summit pledge to ease food crisis
Frances D'Emilio, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Jun 08;

World leaders at a U.N. summit pledged Thursday to reduce trade barriers and boost agricultural production to combat a food crisis that is spreading hunger and violent unrest across the world.

After three days of wrangling, delegates from about 180 countries approved a declaration resolving to ease the suffering caused by soaring food prices and step up investment in agriculture.

The summit also struck a balance on the contentious issue of biofuels, recognizing that there are both "challenges and opportunities" in using food for fuel.

A few Latin American countries raised strong objections to parts of the declaration.

Cuba was disappointed the document didn't criticize the long-standing U.S. embargo against the Communist-ruled island. Argentina was unhappy it didn't blame farm subsidies in the U.S., European Union and other Western food-producers for a major role in driving up prices.

The declaration called for swift help for farmers in poor countries who need seed and fertilizers in time for the approaching planting season.

"We took the measure of the problem of hunger in the world correctly," said Jacques Diouf, head of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, which hosted the summit.

"I think we have an essentially political declaration" of intent to ease hunger, Diouf said.

But it remains to be seen if the words adopted in Rome will translate into changed farm or trade policies at home.

Diouf said that although the gathering wasn't a conference for pledging donations, billions of dollars from countries, regional banks and the World Bank had been promised in recent days.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had told the summit such measures as import taxes and export restrictions must be minimized to alleviate hunger, and the document called for "reducing trade barriers and market-distorting policies."

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer welcomed the declaration on biofuels, saying the United States remains "firmly committed to the sustainable production and use of biofuels, both domestically and globally."

The biofuel issue was a volatile one at the meeting.

The conference struck a balance on the fuels made from crops such as sugar cane and corn, saying that "in-depth studies" are necessary to ensure that the environmentally friendly energy source does not take food off the table.

Brazil, the United States and other big producers of biofuels disagree on which crops are better-suited to produce the energy source and how much they contribute to driving up food prices.

Cuba's delegation called the document "a step in the process to eradicate hunger," welcoming the declaration despite failing to include language criticizing embargoes. The United States, a huge aid donor, opposes efforts to condemn its embargo on doing business with Cuba.

Monica Robelo Raffone, head of Nicaragua's delegation, contended that the conference had failed to offer solutions or identify the reasons for the price increases.

"It doesn't mention the real causes behind the crisis: the high oil prices, the market speculation, the subsidies. ... It's a step back," she said.

Soaring fuel prices drive up costs of fertilizer and farm vehicle use and transport of food to market. Speculation and increased consumption of meat and dairy goods by populations of China, India and other developing nations is also considered a main factor in the food price hikes.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's presence and speech at the summit's opening day Tuesday triggered outrage from Western countries, who blame the leader for the economic collapse of a country once considered a regional breadbasket. Some delegations, including the United States, said they wouldn't have dealings with him at the gathering.

The United States on Thursday also condemned what it called Zimbabwe's unjust and outrageous detention of U.S. diplomats and said it would raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council.

Asked about incident at the summit's closing news conference, Diouf said only that all member nations were invited to the summit and "we deal with food and agriculture. We do not get involved in the policies of single countries."

Associated Press writer Ariel David contributed to this report.

Squabbles may mean messy end to food talks
Deadline for final declaration on ending hunger extended twice
Straits Times 6 Jun 08;

ROME - A SUMMIT aimed at finding solutions to the global food crisis last night risked embarrassing failure to reach any formal agreement on combating hunger threatening a billion people worldwide.

Delegates from 183 countries at the Rome talks were supposed to issue a resounding declaration 'eliminating hunger and securing food for all'.

But they missed their initial Wednesday deadline for agreeing on a final statement.

Yesterday saw the new deadline for a statement extended later into the evening, as squabbling about trade barriers and geopolitics raised the prospect that they would scrap it altogether.

Meanwhile, Ghana's President John Kufuor said: 'The food crisis which the world faces today is so serious that it would be disastrous for the survival of mankind if the conclusions reached suffer the same fate at this historic summit.'

But the problem was not, as widely anticipated, the heated debate on the degree to which biofuels divert food to petrol tanks.

Biofuels had been the focus of the most discord at the three-day meeting aimed at coming up with a plan to deal with the crisis caused by food shortages and soaring prices which have already triggered riots around the world.

But in the end, delegates appeared to have agreed to drop calls for more controls on biofuels, compromising on a call for further study of the issue.

Instead, it appeared to be disagreement over export tariffs and between opponents and supporters of communist Cuba about mention of United States sanctions which threatened to derail any agreement.

'They will look at a new draft which they can either approve, try to amend or, in the worst case, reject,' said a United Nations official as the last day of the meeting began.

The summit was called by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to seek ways to secure food supplies in the face of rising demand - especially from rapidly developing Asian countries - poor harvests and rising fuel costs.

Those factors have contributed to a doubling of food prices over the last couple of years, and prompted warnings from UN chief Ban Ki Moon that unless something was done, a billion people could end up going hungry.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development sees prices of rice, corn and wheat retreating from peaks but still up to 50per cent higher in the next decade, and the FAO says food production must rise by 50per cent by 2050 to meet demand.

But some questioned the worth of the summit, with President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal saying: 'There's been a brutal rise in prices and we were told there was a threat hanging over the world and all the heads of state were called to attend.

'I thought it was going to be to answer the question about what should be done, but it wasn't that at all. It was just a conference like any other and that's why I was disappointed.'

At the same time, others believed the summit had fulfilled its role already by focusing world attention on the hungry and on poor farmers.

'This is at the top of the global agenda and it's none too soon,' said Ms Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Programme.

Mr Matthew Wyatt, deputy head of the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, said: 'Talking is very different to action, but it's a start.

'For the last 30 years, agriculture and food security have barely featured on the international agenda.'

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG