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United Nations: World leaders at a UN summit have the opportunity to devise a strategy to stop skyrocketing food prices from adding millions more to the multitudes of those across the globe who already lack enough to eat.
The Rome-based UN Food and Agriculture Organisation is hosting the three-day summit, which starts on Tuesday, with the goal of preventing a looming catastrophe of widening malnutrition and civil unrest among people unable to afford basic foodstuffs, due to what World Bank calculates has been an 83 per cent increase in prices in the last three years.
Some 40 heads of state or government are expected at the summit, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
The presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at the summit has caused controversy. Mugabe is accused of overseeing Zimbabwe's descent into economic crisis that has left increasing number of Zimbabweans unable to afford food and other essentials.
During the summit, the head of the UN plans to urge world leaders to help reduce soaring food prices by immediately suspending or eliminating many price controls and other agricultural trade restrictions.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will push for nations to ease a wide variety of farming taxes, export bans and import tariffs to help millions of the world's poor cope with the highest food prices in 30 years, UN officials said.
Ban, who also seeks to increase world food production, intends to request that the United States and other nations phase out subsidies for food-based biofuels, including ethanol, that have been used to encourage farmers to grow crops for energy use rather than human consumption.
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