By Phil Stewart

ROME, June 3 (Reuters) - The United States defended itself from accusations of culpability in the world food crisis on Tuesday and said it was not getting enough credit for being the world's largest provider of food aid.

Brazil's president was among participants who took aim at the world's richest nation at the start of a United Nations summit on the global food security, saying U.S. and European farm subsidies were the biggest reason for food inflation.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told reporters the summit's participants had not yet shown proper recognition of U.S. relief to the world's hungry.

"I don't hear too many people around in this conference talking about, 'By the way, we appreciate you providing over one half of the food aid.' I didn't hear that one yet," Schafer said. "Personally, I don't think we get enough recognition for it."

Addressing the summit earlier in the day, Schafer flagged $5 billion in spending in 2008 and 2009 to fight global hunger.

But Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said U.S. and European farm subsidies were destroying lives around the world, and accused the United States of artificially propping up the biofuel corn-based ethanol with state aid. "Subsidies create dependency, breakdown entire production systems and provoke hunger and poverty where there could be prosperity. It is past time to do away with them," Lula said.

"If agriculture in developing countries had been stimulated by free markets, perhaps we would not be in this food crisis."

OBESITY, CHOLESTEROL

The head of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), hosting the summit, said wealthy nations spent billions of dollars on farm subsidies, excess food consumption and arms.

"The excess consumption by the world's obese costs $20 billion annually, to which must be added indirect costs of $100 billion resulting from premature death and related diseases," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is from Senegal.

Schafer criticised Diouf's speech, saying it could have been "calmer, nicer".

"I heard Mr. Diouf's comments. They were interesting. I'm not sure why he was attacking obesity-challenged people about taking food out of other people's mouths. But that's where he went," Schafer said. "I thought his examples were a little critical and could have been handled in a calmer, nicer manner."

Lula said U.S. corn-based ethanol was an example of a harmful type of biofuel "shot up with subsidies and shielded behind tariff barriers" and drew contrasts with Brazil's own sugar-cane based ethanol.

Schafer said the United States was only supporting the development of its ethanol industry in the same way Brazil did in the past. "It seems we're walking down the same path that they walked down 10 years ago," he said.

(Editing by Peter Millership)

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