ROME - A UN summit on the global food crisis will draw up an emergency plan on Wednesday to cut trade barriers, mobilise aid and invest in farming in poor countries to ease hunger threatening nearly 1 billion people.
"We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow," read a draft declaration from the three-day Rome summit, attended by about 44 world leaders and high-level representatives from a total of 151 countries.
The summit is seeking ways to deal with the fallout from soaring food prices and, on its second day, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon received a petition signed online by more than 300,000 people saying there was no time to lose.
"We call on you to take immediate action to address the world food crisis by mobilizing emergency funding to prevent starvation, removing perverse incentives to turn food into biofuels and managing financial speculation," said the petition, organised by online rights group Avaaz.org.
Ban said the summit was already a success. "There is a clear sense of resolve, shared responsibility and political commitment among member states to making the right policy choices and investing in agriculture in the years to come."
"Hunger degrades everything we have been fighting for in recent years and decades," he told reporters. "We are duty-bound to act to act now and to act as one."
Ban's predecessor at the head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, was due on Wednesday to sign an agreement with UN food agencies for a new drive to increase farm production in Africa.
"We hope to spur a green revolution in Africa which respects biodiversity and the continent's distinct regions," said Annan, who chairs the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) which is coordinating the effort, in a statement.
The scheme will provide technical support to improve soil and water management, access to seeds and fertilisers, and improve infrastructure in "breadbasket" areas of Africa which have relatively good conditions for farming.
INVESTMENT
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation called the emergency meeting in Rome after soaring commodity prices threatened to add as many as 100 million more people to the 850 million already going hungry and destabilise governments.
The cost of major food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, with rice, corn and wheat at record highs. The OECD sees prices retreating from their current peaks but still up to 50 percent higher in the coming decade.
After lofty speeches from leaders on Tuesday, many of whom blamed trade barriers and biofuels, championed by Brazil and the United States, for driving up prices, delegates will hold talks on Wednesday to prepare a declaration for release on Thursday.
The draft declaration promised to "stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources sustainably for present and future generations".
The United States found itself on the defensive regarding biofuels, along with Brazil which is the world's largest producer of sugar-cane ethanol, and US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafter bristled at the criticism.
"I don't think the United States gets enough credit at all for providing over one half of all the food aid," he said.
There was wider consensus on the need to reduce trade barriers and scrap export bans imposed by some countries in an attempt to safeguard domestic food supply during the crisis.
Aid agencies blame some Asian nations' export restrictions on rice, for example, for driving up prices which led to riots as far abroad as Haiti in April, which toppled the government.
The Rome summit will set the tone on food aid and subsidies for the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July and what is hoped to be the concluding stages of the stalled Doha talks under the World Trade Organisation aimed at reducing trade distortions.
