UN chief says global food production must rise 50 per cent by 2030

Frances D?Emilio And Ariel David, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROME - Global food production must rise by 50 per cent by 2030 to meet increasing demand, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told world leaders Tuesday at a summit grappling with hunger and civil unrest caused by food price hikes.

Ban told the summit that countries must minimize export restrictions and import tariffs during the food price crisis and quickly resolve world trade talks.

"The world needs to produce more food," Ban said.

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, a UN agency, is hosting the three-day summit to try to solve the short-term emergency of increased hunger caused by soaring prices and to help poor countries grow enough food to feed their own.

In a message read to the delegates, Pope Benedict said "hunger and malnutrition are unacceptable in a world which, in reality, has sufficient production levels, the resources, and the know-how to put an end to these tragedies and their consequences."

The Pope told the world leaders that millions of people at threat in countries with security concerns were looking to them for solutions.

Ban said a UN task force he set up to deal with the crisis is recommending the countries "improve vulnerable people's access to food and take immediate steps to increase food availability in their communities."

That means increasing food aid, supplying small farmers with seed and fertilizer in time for this year's planting seasons, and reducing trade restrictions to help the free flow of agricultural goods.

"Some countries have taken action by limiting exports or by imposing price controls," Ban said. "They only distort markets and force prices even higher."

The increasing diversion of food and animal feed to produce biofuel, and sharply higher fuel costs have also helped to shoot prices upward, experts say.

The UN is encouraging summit participants to start undoing a decades-long legacy of agricultural and trade policies that many blame for the failure of small farmers in poor countries to feed their own people.

Wealthy countries' subsidizing their own farmers makes it harder for small farmers in poor countries to compete in global markets, critics of such subsidies say. Jim Butler, the FAO's deputy director general, said in an interview ahead of the gathering that a draft document that could be the basis for a final summit declaration doesn't promise to overhaul subsidy policy.

U.S. Congress last month passed a five-year farm bill heavy on subsidies, bucking White House objections that such aid in the middle of a global food crisis wasn't warranted.

The head of the summit's U.S. delegation, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, insisted Monday that biofuels will contribute only two or three per cent to a predicted 43 per cent rise in prices this year.

Figures by other international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, show that the increased demand for biofuels is contributing by 15-30 per cent to food price increases, said Frederic Mousseau, a policy adviser at Oxfam, a British aid group.

"Food stocks are at their lowest in 25 years, so the market is very vulnerable to any policy changes" such as U.S. or European Union subsidizing biofuels or mandating greater use of this energy source, Mousseau said.

Brazil is another large exporter of biofuels, and President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva defended the alternative fuels.

"It offends me to see fingers pointed against clean energy from biofuels, fingers soiled with oil and coal," said Silva, whose country's sugar cane has long been used to produce ethanol. He insisted that biofuels "are not the villain menacing food security in poor countries."

Silva alluded to wealthy countries' farm subsidiaries as a key culprit for food insecurity.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe defended land policies blamed for devastating his country's agricultural sector, asserting that the West was trying to cripple the country's economy.

Mugabe's presence at the summit sparked protests from some world leaders. He is blamed for the economic collapse of a country once considered a regional breadbasket and Zimbabweans increasingly are unable to afford food and other essentials.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose presence at the summit also came under protest, denounced wealthy western countries for subsidizing their own farmers. He asked: "Why do some powers turn the food of the people into an object for profiteering?"

© The Canadian Press, 2008