UN says solving food crisis could cost $30 billion

ROME: Resolving the global food crisis could cost as much as $30 billion a year and wealthier nations are doing little to help the developing world face the problem, United Nations officials said Tuesday.

At a UN food summit attended by dozens of world leaders, Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, opened the meeting by sharply criticizing wealthy nations who he said were cutting back on agriculture programs for the world's poor and ignoring deforestation — while spending billions on carbon markets, subsidies for farmers and biofuel production.

"The developing countries did in fact forge policies, strategies and programs that — if they had received appropriate funding — would have given us world food security," Diouf, said, adding that international community finally began to mobilize to help after images of food riots and starvation emerged in the media. He said there had been plenty of meetings on the need for anti-hunger programs and agricultural development in poor nations in the last decade but not enough money to make them a reality.

Another major debate that emerged at the conference was the role of biofuels in producing food shortages. The U.S. delegation here maintains that only 2 to 3 percent of food price rises were attributable to the biofuel boom. The UN, however, said the impact was much greater. Biofuel production affects food prices because farmers in many countries have switched from growing crops for food to growing crops for fuel.

Diouf criticized policies like those in the United States that subsidize growing crops for energy.

"Nobody understands how $11 to $12 billion a year subsidies in 2006 and protective tariff policies have the effect of diverting 100 million tons of cereals from human consumption, mostly to satisfy the thirst for fuel for vehicles," Diouf said.

But Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the president of Brazil, pointed out that some biofuels could provide a solution to world hunger if properly deployed. In Brazil, where biofuel is made from sugar cane, the industry has provided jobs for poor people as well as sustainable fuel, he said.

The idea that biofuels have cause the world hunger crisis was "an oversimplification" and "an affront that does not stand up to serious discussion," da Silva said.

He instead blamed the high cost of food on high fuel prices: "It offends me to see fingers pointed at biofuels, when the fingers are coated in oil and coal."

There was little disagreement about how to resolve the spiraling costs of food and its impact on the world's poor: more food aid to feed the world's hungry, additional seeds and fertilizer for poor farmers, fewer export bans and tariffs that restrict the flow of trade, and more research to improve crop yields. The problem now is convincing wealthy nations to pay for it, estimated to cost as much as $30 billion a year.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, appealed for financial support from wealthy nations to immediately provide more food aid and to help poor countries grow more food. He noted that several governments and global institutions have already pledged additional financial support to deal with the food crisis.

In addition, the United States and some other countries have suggested that genetically modified crops could play a key role in helping poor nations to grow more food, a position that some governments and non-profit groups strongly oppose. The United States is by far the world's leading producer of genetically modified crops and seeds.

At the Circus Maximus, across from the conference site, ActionAid, an international anti-poverty group, unfurled a banner saying "Stop Profiting from Hunger — Right to Food Now."

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