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ROME-A United Nations summit on the global food crisis called on Tuesday for trade barriers to be reduced and food export bans scrapped to help stop the spread of hunger that threatens nearly one billion people."Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Rome summit, where the United States and Brazil defended biofuel production from charges that it pushes up world food prices.The head of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), hosting the summit, said wealthy nations spent billions of dollars on farm subsidies, excess food consumption and arms."The excess consumption by the world's obese costs $20 billion annually, to which must be added indirect costs of $100 billion resulting from premature death and related diseases," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is from Senegal.Humanitarian agencies estimate soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger. About 850 million are already going hungry.Ban estimated the "global price tag" to overcome the food crisis would be $15-20 billion a year and that food supply had to rise 50 percent by the year 2030 to meet climbing demand."Some countries have taken action by limiting exports or by imposing draft controls," he said, referring to controls slapped on foods in emergency to guarantee domestic supply.This "distorts markets and forces prices even higher. I call on nations to resist such measures and to immediately release exports designated for humanitarian purposes".
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