Food crisis: UN to reveal battle plan

AFP
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was set Monday to lead a concerted effort by 27 key UN agencies to tackle the growing crisis caused by a worldwide sharp rise in basic foodstuff prices.
The UN was scheduled at a two-day conference in the Swiss capital Bern to reveal a battle plan of emergency measures, while [...]

World food crisis turns rice into gold

Until a few months ago, Booncherd Leekasem would never have been caught astride a muddy tractor or squelching through buffalo dung in a rice paddy.
As a headman of Khao Ngam in central Thailand he had far more respectable things to attend to, such as organising village affairs and running the restaurant where his wife serves [...]

Trade war brewing over US biofuel subsidies

Guardian
European biodiesel producers triggered a fresh transatlantic trade war yesterday by urging the EU to impose punitive duties on cheap imports from the US.
Low-priced imports of biofuels, as part of the so-called “splash and dash” trade, are putting many European producers out of business, the industry group claims.
Their American rivals immediately hit back by urging [...]

Kremlin wary of soaring food prices

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Food costs spark protest in Senegal

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Obama says US will need to abandon ethanol production

In the US, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said the US will not be able to ignore global suffering from a food crisis.
Obama said the US should be “mindful” of the effect its own search for alternative fuel sources is having and should slowly move away from maize-based fuel production that has shared the [...]

Nicaraguan president opens emergency meeting on food crisis in Central America

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says Central American food shortages have reached crisis levels and could cause social unrest.
Free trade, market forces, and farm subsidies in developed nations are contributing to the problem, Ortega told regional agriculture ministers on Saturday.
Ortega convened the ministers for what he called “an emergency meeting to take measures in the face [...]