Can summit fix the food crisis?

(From Western Daily Press)

When they started to plan the food summit in Rome a year ago, it was going to be about the impact of climate change and biofuels on the world's food supply.

However, it is turning out to be mainly about the runaway price of food, which is having a big impact on the world's poor - and that's a pity, because there's not a lot that an international conference can do about a short-term problem like that.

The conference, sponsored by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation, open- ed on Tuesday and attracted 40 heads of state and government - far more than it would have a year ago - because they have to be seen to be doing something about prices.

But the immediate need to find the money to feed the very poor, who simply cannot buy food at current prices, has been met by a donation of 500 million from Saudi Arabia that covers two-thirds of the World Food Programme's 755 million emergency appeal.

Theres little to be done about the short-term problem because the huge rise in the prices of basic foods over the past year - rice tripled in price and wheat more than doubled - has been driven mainly by the market over-reacting to relatively minor mismatches of supply and demand.

A five per cent shortfall in world wheat supply, caused partly by the Australian drought, led to a 130 per cent rise in price, but the price is already coming down again on the expectation of a much bigger crop this year.