Niche Info Online Business

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:12pm BST 22/04/2008

Rising food prices are a "silent tsunami" which threaten to be as devastating as the worst natural disasters, an international conference has been warned.

Josette Sheeran, of the World Food Programme told Gordon Brown and other political and business leaders that the international community needed to respond as effectively to the hunger crisis as it did to the 2004 tsunami which killed 250,000 and left 10 million destitute.

"This is the new face of hunger - the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are," she added. "The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community, focused on emergency and longer-term solutions.''

Her comments follow a call by the Prime Minister for an "agricultural revolution," to encourage poor farmers able to take advantage of technological solutions to grow high-yield crops.

Mr Brown admitted that British shoppers were already feeling the effects of the highest global food prices since the war, but warned the impacts on the world's poorest countries were catastrophic.

He added: "The World Health Organisation now views hunger as the number one threat to public health across the world, responsible for a third of child deaths and 10 per cent of all disease.

"Tackling hunger is a moral challenge to each of us and it is also a threat to the political and economic stability of nations. So I believe we need to see a fully co-ordinated response by the international community."

"I want to see an agricultural revolution that helps poor farmers in developing countries to grow more and we need to ensure more of the food they produce gets to market rather than being left to rot, as more than half is at present.

"A large 'aid for trade' package will be crucial to help poor farmers build storage facilities, better roads and develop the capacity to sell their products in our markets.''

Mr Brown has already written to G8 leaders calling for action on food prices. The aim of the summit is to develop a plan to take to the EU in June, the G8 in July and a special meeting of the United Nations in September.

Unveiling a £455 million food-aid package, Douglas Alexander, International Development Secretary, said: "We will work with key international institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF and United Nations, to develop a comprehensive approach that will help put food on the table for nearly a billion people going hungry across the world."

Meanwhile, the Trade Minister, Gareth Thomas, also warned that environmental campaigners may be fuelling poverty by persuading people to not buy food which has been flown in from Africa.

He added: "People shouldn't assume that buying food from abroad is worse for the environment than buying from the UK. It's not that simple.

"The livelihoods of a million African farmers are threatened by a misinformed food miles debate that might put shoppers off their produce - for example Dutch roses use more energy to produce than Kenyan roses."

Another threat to the third world, highlighted by My Brown, is the drive to convert farm land to produce biofuels could result in starvation for millions.

Until now, the Government had been a strong supporter of the use of biofuels grown from cereals such as maize as a means to reduce carbon emissions.

But in an article ahead of a Downing Street summit on global food prices, the Prime Minister said that hunger was now the world's number one threat to human health - and warned biofuels may be exacerbating the problem.

But the Prime Minister raised concerns that the use of farmland for energy crops may be adding to the global surge in food prices.

In this country, the price of some basic food items has risen by four times the rate of inflation, with cheese, eggs, butter, bread, milk and chicken all increasing by more than 10 per cent in the last year.

In his article for the Downing Street website, Mr Brown admitted the UK needed to be "more selective" in its support for biofuels, which it had previously championed as a means to tackle global warming.

Under the terms of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, all petrol and diesel must now contain a proportion of biofuel.

Mr Brown said the new fuels were "frequently energy inefficient," but added: "We need to look closely at the impact on food prices and the environment of different production methods and to ensure we are more selective in our support.

"If our UK review shows that we need to change our approach, we will also push for change in EU biofuels targets."

Phil Bloomer of Oxfam, who is attending the summit, welcomed Mr Brown's change of heart, saying: "Setting mandatory targets for biofuels before we are aware of their full impact is madness. "Not only are biofuels pushing up food prices, but they are also linked to human rights abuses and land-grabs from the poor."

Also attending the summit are representatives from the World Food Programme, the African Development Bank, Oxfam, Save the Children, the National Farmers Union and Sainsbury's.