Brown expresses concern over food shortage

Yesterdat the Prime Minister yesterday put rising food prices on the world agenda as he wrote to his contemporary G8 leaders in order to organise an international package on food shortage.

Gordon Brown has expressed concerns over the fact that the speed towards environmentally questionable biofuels are being taken up could lead to a disruption in the production of food.

Brown is expected to make this issue a part of the G8 summit meeting to be held in Japan in July, in addition to discussing the problem with US leaders in Washington and New York next week.

This is after the US’s animated approach to biofuels as a way in which climate change can be tackled. Brown is hoping that the IMF and World Bank will be keen to take on the issue.

A letter from Brown to the Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, lay down a plan by which the food crisis could be tackled.

Brown wrote of the increasing consensus that an examination to the impact of food prices upon different kinds and methods of production of biofuels is necessary, along with a check into the responsible and sustainable nature of biofuels.

At present the UK is in the process of bringing in subsidies for biofuels.

In February Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, commissioned a review into the impact of biofuels.

Brown has opposed an increase in biofuel targets proposed by the EU with concerns that they have an impact upon deforestation, in addition to precious habitats and food security.

The letter by Brown released today comes after Tuesday’s warning by Sir John Holmes, the UN’s top humanitarian official, that food prices are likely to generate unrest the world over, combined with creating political instability.

The Prime Minister’s chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, has claimed that the effects of the food crisis will occur faster than climate change.

The UN’s food and agriculture organisation has stated that food prices have already risen by 57% this year alone.

The price of rice has doubled and countries have been forced to slow exports.

Similarly rises in the price of food have contributed to the speed of growth in countries including China.

Yesterday a report by the World Bank stated that biofuel consumption has contributed to a rise in global food prices by 83% over the past three years.

The report further claimed that the rise would push inflation and strain on developing countries well into the next decade.

Brown spoke of the consistent rise in food prices in threatening progress made on development over the past few years.

He stated that for the first time in a good while the number of people facing hunger is on the increase.

As a result he called for a doubling of efforts to get a WTO deal which will provide better access for poorer countries to developed country markets, whereby “market incentives” would close the gap between world supply and demand in the long term.