By Robin Pomeroy
ROME (Reuters) - African countries and anti-povertycampaigners looked to the outcome of a food crisis summit onThursday for a signal the world will start to produce solutionsto stop millions more people falling into hunger.
"The world is facing an unprecedented world food crisis andnowhere is this crisis more serious and acute than in Africa,"said Kofi Annan, the former U.N. chief who now heads a bodyaimed at creating a "green revolution" in farming in Africa.
After three days of talks between representatives of 151countries, the summit was due to issue a declaration committingto "eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today andtomorrow".
"We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate thesuffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate foodproduction and to increase investment in agriculture," a draftof the declaration said.
Delegates were negotiating late into the night to finalisethe statement in which references to trade policy, particularlybiofuels, proved contentious.
The United States, which is diverting increasing amounts ofits maize harvest into automobile fuel, came under attack fromsome countries and poverty campaigners who have called for arethink of policies to promote fuel made from foodstuffs.
Washington says the spread of biofuels has added to thedemand for crops, especially maize, and contributed to foodinflation, but only by a marginal amount.
Increased global food demand, especially from rapidlydeveloping Asian countries, poor harvests and rising fuel costsare seen as the main reasons commodity prices have doubled overthe last couple of years.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developmentsees prices of rice, corn and wheat retreating from their peaksbut still up to 50 percent higher in the coming decade.
The summit, at the Rome headquarters of the U.N. Food andAgriculture Organisation, was meant to discuss the plight ofthe 100 million people at risk of joining the 850 millionalready going hungry due to the price crisis.
"BRUTAL RISE"
President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, a sceptic ofinternational attempts to solve hunger, said the summit hadbeen a waste of time.
"There's been a brutal rise in prices (of food) and we weretold there was a threat hanging over the world and all theheads of state were called to attend. I thought it was going tobe to answer the question about what should be done, but itwasn't that at all," Wade told Reuters.
"It was just a conference like any other and that's why Iwas disappointed," said Wade, one of more than 40 heads ofstate and government who attended the Rome summit.
British-based poverty campaign group Oxfam was more upbeat.
"It would be very easy to dismiss this food summit as atalking shop," said Barbara Stocking, head of Oxfam GB. "But itcould be a stepping stone to better policies and the money toimplement them."
Although the summit was not meant to produce promises ofaid or set new global policies, it has set the tone on food andhunger for more concrete talks in the coming months.
Group of Eight leaders meet at a summit in Japan in July bywhich time a food crisis task force set up by U.N.Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to have issued a concreteaction plan.
(Additional reporting by Diadie Ba in Dakar; Editing by JonBoyle)
