U.N. sees food prices unleashing silent tsunami

LONDON (Reuters) - A "silent tsunami" unleashed by costlierfood threatens 100 million people, the United Nations said onTuesday, and aid groups said producers would make things worseif they curbed exports.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain would seek changesto EU biofuels targets if it was shown that planting crops forfuel was driving up food prices -- a day after the bloc stoodby its plans to boost biofuel use.

The World Food Programme (WFP), whose head Josette Sheerantook part in a meeting of experts Brown called on Tuesday todiscuss the crisis, said a "silent tsunami" threatened toplunge more than 100 million people on every continent intohunger.

"This is the new face of hunger -- the millions of peoplewho were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago butnow are," she said ahead of the meeting.

Riots in poor Asian and African countries have followedsteep rises in food prices caused by many factors -- dearerfuel, bad weather, rising disposable incomes boosting demandand the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel.

Rice from Thailand, the world's top exporter, has more thandoubled in price this year. Major food exporters includingIndonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Cambodia have imposed curbs onfood exports to secure supplies.

Sheeran said artificially created shortages aggravated theproblem: "The world has been consuming more than it has beenproducing for the past three years, so stocks have been drawndown."

Rising prices meant the WFP was running short of money tobuy food for its programmes and had already curtailed schoolfeeding plans in Tajikistan, Kenya and Cambodia.

Sheeran said the WFP, which last year estimated it wouldneed $2.9 billion in 2008 to cover its needs, now calculated itwould have to raise that figure by a quarter because of thesurge in prices of staples like wheat, maize and rice.

END OF AN ERA

Britain pledged $900 million to help the WFP alleviateimmediate problems and Brown raised further doubts about thewisdom of using crops to help produce fuel.

"If our UK review shows that we need to change ourapproach, we will also push for change in EU biofuels targets,"he said a day after the EU stood by its target of getting atenth of road transport fuel from crops and agricultural wasteby 2020.

Japanese Agriculture Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi saidTokyo would propose the World Trade Organisation set clearrules for food export restrictions imposed by producercountries.

Tokyo wanted a WTO mechanism for food importers such asJapan to be able to give an opinion when notified aboutrestrictions by an exporting country, Wakabayashi said,according to the text of a news conference published on theministry's website.

Rajat Nag, managing director general of the AsianDevelopment Bank, said the era of cheap food was over and urgedAsian governments not to distort markets with export curbs butuse fiscal measures to help the poor.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said dearer foodrisked wiping out progress on cutting poverty.

His predecessor Kofi Annan said climate change wasaggravating the global food crisis and many poor countriescould be facing the start of "major hunger disasters".

"The poor are bearing the brunt and they contributed theleast to climate change. The polluter must pay," he said."Climate change is an all-encompassing threat -- a threat toour health, security, political stability and social cohesion."

(Written by Richard Meares, editing by Jon Boyle)