U.N. says food plan could cost $30 bln a year
Güncelleme Tarihi:
World leaders met on Tuesday to discuss soaring food prices and to seek a solution to the hunger crisis of which they concluded will cost $30 billion a year, with the need to double food production in the next 30 years.
World and international organization leaders meeting at the Rome-based United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization agreed that providing small farmers with seeds and fertilizer, scrapping export bans and restrictions and increasing agriculture research and outreach programs to vastly improve crop production were the solutions to feeding the world's hungry.
Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the host of the meeting, estimated the cost of feeding the world’s hungry could run to $30 billion a year.
“The problem of food insecurity is a political one,” Diouf said “It is a question of priorities in the face of the most fundamental of human needs. And it is those choices made by governments that determine the allocation of resources.”
As expected, biofuels also emerged as the most contentious issue of the conference, and government policies that diverted food crops to energy use were criticized, particularly at a time of increasing hunger.
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"It is frightening to see attempts to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between biofuels and the rise of food prices," said Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. "It offends me to see fingers pointed against clean energy from biofuels, fingers soiled with oil and coal."
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