By Robin Pomeroy
ROME (Reuters) - Political squabbling put a U.N. summit onthe global food crisis at risk of closing on Thursday without apowerful declaration on how to stop millions more people goinghungry.
"The food crisis which the world faces today is so seriousthat it would be disastrous for the survival of mankind if theconclusions reached suffer the same fate at this historicsummit," said Ghana's President John Kufuor in speech deliveredby an aide.
Delegates from 151 countries at the Rome talks, which beganwith speeches from 44 leaders on Tuesday, missed theirWednesday deadline for agreeing a final statement about"eliminating hunger and securing food for all".
"They will look at a new draft which they can eitherapprove, try to amend or, in the worst case, reject," said aU.N. official as the last day of the meeting began.
The issue putting the talks at risk was not the mostcontentious debate -- biofuels, which anti-hunger campaignerssay diverts food from mouths into gas tanks -- but disagreementbetween opponents and supporters of communist Cuba aboutmention of U.S. sanctions against the communist island, as wellas other marginal issues.
The summit was called by the United Nations' Food andAgriculture Organisation to discuss securing food supplies inthe face of rising demand -- especially from rapidly developingAsian countries -- poor harvests and rising fuel costs.
Those factors have contributed to a doubling of commodityprices over the last couple of years which the World Bank sayshas put 100 million people at risk of joining the 850 millionalready going hungry.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developmentsees prices of rice, corn and wheat retreating from peaks butstill up to 50 percent higher in the next decade. The FAO saysfood production must rise 50 percent by 2050 to meet demand.
BRUTAL PRICE RISE
The summit's main message was due to be: "We firmly resolveto use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by thecurrent crisis, to stimulate food production and to increaseinvestment in agriculture."
Some question the use of the summit. President AbdoulayeWade of Senegal, a sceptic of international attempts to solvehunger and critic of the FAO, said it was 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 in Japan in July, by which timea food crisis task force set up by U.N. Secretary-General BanKi-moon is due to have issued a concrete action plan.
The summit's talks on the potential benefits to poorfarmers from new global trade rules will feed into a push toconclude the so-called Doha round of World Trade Organisationtalks, which reach a potentially conclusive phase in the comingweeks.
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 acknowledges that the spread of biofuels hasadded to the demand for crops, especially maize, andcontributed to food inflation, but only by a marginal amount.
(Additional reporting by Stephen Brown and Diadie Ba inDakar; Editing by Diana Abdallah)