Food Crisis

A United Nations summit on the global food crisis called on Tuesday for trade barriers to be reduced and food export bans scrapped to help stop the spread of hunger that threatens nearly one billion people.

Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Rome summit

"The excess consumption by the world's obese costs $20 billion annually, to which must be added indirect costs of $100 billion resulting from premature death and related diseases," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is from Senegal.

Humanitarian agencies estimate soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger. About 850 million are already going hungry.

"It is unacceptable that rich countries still subsidise farming by $1 billion a day, costing poor farmers in developing countries an estimated $100 billion a year in lost income," said British International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander.

The cost of major food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, with rice, corn and wheat at record highs. This has provoked protests and riots in some developing countries where people may spend more than half their income on food.

Rising fuel prices, as well as making agricultural supplies like seeds and fertilisers more costly, have raised interest in biofuels, blamed by many for competing with food output for grains and oilseed.

International Herald Tribune
June 3, 2008