ROME, 2 June 2008 (IRIN) - Twelve years on after the World Food Summit in 1996, when 10,000 participants from 185 countries met to end hunger, the food pundits are back in Rome.  This time it's a crisis.

Food prices are at their highest level since the 1970s. Wheat prices are up by 120 and rice by 75 percent. Food has become expensive because stocks are low and fuel prices are at a record high.

A report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week pointed out that nothing much had changed since the 1996 summit and efforts by the multilateral agencies and aid donors such as the United States have been "insufficient."

Money to boost food production in Africa promised the last time round never really panned out, according to the GAO report.

GAO, the investigative arm of the US Congress, said the number of undernourished people had not dropped and is now about 850 million. The number of hungry in sub-Saharan Africa had shot up from about 170 million in the period of 1990 to 1992 to over 200 million in the period of 2001 to 2003.

It's striking - if you had a look at the 1996 World Food Summit proceedings, the food agencies were warning about "only" 680 million hungry by 2010...

Since 2007, food-importing countries have been hit hard by the double shock posed by food and fuel prices and at least 17 have witnessed protest riots or related unrest. Soaring prices have also claimed at least one political casualty - the government in the Caribbean nation of Haiti.

There is less food because production dipped in many major grain-supplying countries such as Australia, which had a lengthy drought. Various analysts have also blamed low food grain stocks on high meat and dairy consumption in growing economies such as China and India, and shifts to biofuel crop farming.

So what are they going to suggest in Rome this time round? The plan is expected to be three-pronged – short term, medium-term and long-term.

Short-term: provide food aid to help countries, where people cannot afford to eat anymore or maybe help out with cash handouts and get countries to reduce import duties or take other measures to control prices globally.

Medium-term: Have re-think on trade policies to control prices globally and on the production of biofuel.

Long-term: Yes, everyone is promising money yet again to revolutionise agriculture in Africa and this time they say they are dead serious!

More to come...

jk/bp

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