U.N. Food Summit Ends With Call for Studies, Dialogue on Biofuels

By Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Jun. 6–ROME — Negotiators searching for ways to combat the world food crisis ended their three-day summit in Rome Thursday after adopting a declaration that includes calls for “in-depth studies” and “international dialogue” on the proposed control of biofuel output.

The summit, sponsored by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, addressed hunger, poverty and other challenges posed by bioenergy and climate change as well as soaring food prices that are squeezing many parts of the globe, particularly developing countries.

“We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow,” said the declaration, which wrapped up three days of discussion among the negotiators from 181 countries.

“We took the measure of the problem of hunger in the world correctly,” said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Rome-based FAO.

The negotiators struck a compromise over the proposed control of biofuel production using vague wording — the importance of “in-depth studies” and “international dialogue” — for the document, reflecting a sharp division between food importers and biofuel producers.

The deal represents a setback in the efforts of Japan and other food-importing countries to control biofuels, which they accuse of stoking food prices around the world.

These countries tried to incorporate a proposal for setting up “international policy guidelines” for sustainable bioenergy production as was included in a draft paper.

But they failed to retain the phrase in the final paper after apparent opposition from major biofuel-producing countries such as Brazil and the United States.

Such biofuel producers have downplayed the impact of biofuel output on food prices, arguing biofuels account for only 3 percent of recent price rises.

The declaration states the international community needs to take urgent and coordinated action to combat the negative impact of soaring food prices.

But negotiators fell short of an agreement to take drastic action on food export controls due to strong opposition from countries that have adopted such measures.

The summit reaffirmed “the need to minimize the use of restrictive measures that could increase volatility of international prices,” the declaration says, backing down from a draft version that calls on governments “not to institute trade actions, such as export limits or bans that could threaten stability of food supply.” Some food-producing countries have introduced export-control steps amid surging global food prices to put priority on domestic supply. Japan, the United States and some other countries urged such export controls be lifted or curbed.

Biofuels, made from corn, sugar cane and other foodstuffs, have been blamed for contributing to soaring food prices.

Japan therefore stressed it is necessary to promote the development of so-called second-generation biofuels made from nonfood sources such as grasses.

As the declaration calls for addressing the challenge of biofuels from the standpoint of food security, Japan’s stance was taken into account, a Japanese government official said.

The declaration called for supplying seeds, fertilizers and other input to low-income food-deficit countries as short-term measures and promoting investment in research and development and other programs to increase agricultural production in such countries as medium- and long-term measures.

The summit was attended by the leaders of around 40 countries including Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

The food issue will be taken up at next month’s Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido, northern Japan. The G-8 leaders are expected to compile a special statement on the issue and to come up with more concrete measures to tackle it on the basis of the discussion at the Rome summit.

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Copyright (c) 2008, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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