UN Food Summit Opens to Address Food Crisis - Japanese Agency

from Air America

Rome - A UN food summit opened Tuesday in Rome to address a crisis stemming from surging food prices, with top UN officials calling for the need to increase food availability for vulnerable people and to eradicate hunger.

At the outset of the three-day meeting convened by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon urged the international community to work together to overcome the global food crisis.

"We must improve vulnerable people's access to food and take immediate steps to increase food availability in their communities," he said. "Only by acting together, in partnership, can we overcome this crisis, today and for tomorrow."

Ban warned against export restrictions by food-exporting nations. "Some countries have taken action by limiting exports or by imposing price controls...I call on nations to resist such measures and to immediately release exports designated for humanitarian purposes," he said.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick joined Ban in warning against the trade practice.

"We need an international call to remove export bans and restrictions," he said in a speech to the food summit. "These controls encourage hoarding, drive up prices, and hurt the poorest people around the world who are struggling to feed themselves," he said.

Zoellick urged the world community to take quick action to address the global food crisis, which he says " could push 100 million people into poverty - 30 million in Africa alone - reversing the gains made in poverty reduction over the last seven years."

"This is not a natural catastrophe. It is man-made and can be fixed by us. It does not take complex research. We know what has to be done. We just need action and resources in real time," he said.

FAO Director General Jacques Diouf called for world leaders to extend financial support, saying $30 billion is needed annually to eradicate hunger.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda called on the international community to take emergency steps in concert to deal with the food crisis while pledging additional Japanese aid of $50 million to help developing countries, including those in Africa.

Meanwhile, a revised draft declaration proposed for adoption at the summit shows participants will likely urge governments to undertake an "international dialogue on biofuels" as part of efforts to deal with the food crisis.

Kyodo News obtained a copy of the draft declaration of the three- day summit, with heads of state and government representatives taking part.

The wording in the revised draft, however, indicates a setback for efforts to control biofuels from the preceding draft. The earlier draft dated May 20, which was also made available to Kyodo News, urged governments to study the possibility of "international policy guidelines" for sustainable bioenergy production.

The proposal for international policy guidelines has been deleted from the revised text, which instead reads, "We call upon...national Governments, partnerships, the private sector, and civil society, to together undertake a coherent, results-oriented international dialogue on biofuels, in the context of food security and the environment."

Japan and other food-importing countries have blamed global food price hikes on the diversion of corn and sugarcane to biofuels and have been calling for the development of biofuels not derived from food crops.

But major biofuel-producing nations, such as the United States and Brazil, have dismissed the impact of biofuel output on food prices as small.

The revised draft calls on governments "not to institute trade actions, such as export limits or bans that could threaten stability of food supply," a phrase that has been incorporated at the request of food-importing countries including Japan.

But this proposal may be revised due to opposition from food- exporting nations.

Tough bargaining over the wording of the declaration, which will be adopted Thursday, is expected to continue during the course of the summit as it will lay the groundwork for debates at the Group of Eight summit at the Lake Toya resort in Hokkaido on July 7-9.

Japan is also calling on other participating countries to recognize the importance of greater domestic agricultural production.

But this assertion has caused another point of discord with the United States and other countries demanding further liberalization of farm trade.

The revised text calls attention to soaring food prices, biofuel production and climate change as factors that could undermine food security.