World food crisis

Food agency calls for emergency action to combat food crisis

Article published on the 2008-04-23 Latest update 2008-04-23 10:09 TU

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
(Photo: Reuters)

The world faces a "silent tsunami" of soaring food prices and more must be done to help secure future supply, the UN food agency said Tuesday as experts gathered in London for a special summit on the problem, which was hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. UN World Food Programme chief Josette Sheeran has called for major, emergency and long-term action on the same scale of global relief efforts that followed the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says that 100 million people who previously did not need help can now not afford food.

WFP spokesperson Carlyle Hufford told RFI that an action plan is needed to help those who are particularly hard hit to avoid further suffering for everyone in the future.

"What is happening is that we're seeing an eating away of lives of children, in particular, who run the risk of not developing their mental faculties and this is going to play out in society of  the future," she said.

The WFP says that the growing crisis, which has sparked protests and violence across much of the developing world, is the worst in the agency's 45-year history.

On the day of the conference, unrest hit the Afghan city of Jalalabad and the Gabonese capital, Libreville.

The food summit, which involved scientists and representatives from the European Union and Africa, aimed to determinine ways to boost food supplies and identify deterrents.

And it called for a rethink on the increasing use of biofuels,which has eaten into food supplies.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told a development conference in Ghana that the soaring food prices threaten to reverse recent gains against global hunger and malnutrition and in Washington, World Bank President Robert Zoellick repeated a call for donations to the World Food Program.