This is the Voa Special English Agriculture Report.
A United Nations conference on rising food prices ended with an agreement to invest more in agriculture.
UN secretary Genery Ban K said food production needs to increase 50% by 2030 to make rising demand. The cost, he said could top 15 to 20,000,000 a year over a number of years.
About 180 countries were represented at the three-day summit meeting last week in Rome. The final declaration called for immediate support for agriculture production including seeds, fertilizer and other supplies. It also urged countries to reduce agricultural trade barriers. The deligates nearly fail to reach a final agreement, there were objections from Northern America on trade related issues.
The UN food and agriculture organization says agriculture is the main support for 70% of the world's poor. Yet, the FAO says, aid to agriculture fell almost 60% from 1984 to 2004.
In 1980, 17% of official development assistance went to agriculture. By 2006 that cheer was 3%. The meeting in Rome was officially called the high-level conference on world food security: the challenges of climate change and By a villege.
Using food crops to make fuel was a major point of debate. In the end, J head of the FAO said differences of opinion about biofuels were too wide to settle. Some countries called for international guidelines on production, but the final declaration called only for indepth study to make sure biofuels don't threaten food security .
The European Union and United States both support biofuels. Before the conference American agriculture secretary E said Biofuels play only a small part in higher food prices.He said, other causes include rising energy prices and poor harvests in major green producing countries. He also noted increased consturctions on food exports. High food prices have incresed hunger and poverty and produced wildy in some countries. In addition to short-term measures, countries are being urged to think of longer lasting answers to feed a growing world. The final declaration said 862,000,000 people are still undernourished in the world today and noted that food prices are expected to remain high in the years to come.
And that's the Voa special English agriculture report written by J. I'm Bob.