(Repeats to widen distribution)

By Robin Pomeroy

ROME, May 23 (Reuters) - The only way to solve world hunger is to help poor farmers produce more food, the man who has called a food price crisis summit next month said on Friday.

Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, will host a world food summit in Rome on June 3-5 when government leaders and ministers will seek ways to prevent millions more people falling into hunger.

He said impact of the current crisis -- with food import bills for the poorest countries doubling in two years due to record commodity prices -- should come as no surprise.

"It didn't come from nowhere. It came from people not listening...," Diouf told Reuters in an interview.

The 67-year-old Senegalese agronomist, who has headed FAO for the last 14 years, said he had called for years for more aid for farmers in poor countries, but this went largely unheeded.

The proportion of overseas aid going into agriculture has fallen from 17 percent in 1980 to 3 percent today, Diouf said.

"Everybody was aware of the fact that something was wrong -- we did not do what was needed to correct this."

He called the summit last year to discuss the impact on food security of climate change and biofuel. Since then a price spike has caused protests and riots in some developing countries.

"Now the consequences are at a social and political level, people are getting down in the streets..." he said, noting that a number of people had been killed and a government toppled, apparently referring to Haiti.

FOOD INTO FUEL

First, Diouf said, the world must guarantee food aid levels are maintained despite food inflation, then it must help poor farmers who have been unable to gain from price hikes that have made wealthier growers richer.

"We need to allow farmers in poor countries to get access to seeds, fertilisers and animal feed because as a consequence of overall increases in prices the costs of those inputs have also increased.

"Therefore instead of having, as the economist would expect, an increase of production because of increase in prices, we may have production going down because poor farmers around the world cannot afford anymore the inputs necessary for production."

While few delegates at the summit could disagree with that message, thornier issues such as biofuels and genetically modified foods will be more controversial.

"World problems are much more complex than saying something is bad and something is good. What is sure is that diverting around 100 million tonnes of cereals to biofuel has had an impact on food prices," he said.

Diouf declined to comment further on harsh criticism from Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, who said the FAO was a waste of money and should be closed down, comments that Diouf has said were politically motivated and factually incorrect.

When asked about speculation he plans to return home to run for president for the Socialist Party, whose 40-year rule Wade overturned when he was elected president in 2000, Diouf smiled.

"I'm responsible for FAO until December 2011. That's my job and that's my focus." (Editing by Peter Blackburn)

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