ROME – It was supposed to be an emergency conference on food shortages, climate change and energy. At the opening ceremony, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, noted that there were nearly one billion people short of food, and he called upon countries gathered here to act with “a sense of purpose and mission.‰
But when the microphone was turned on for the powerful politicians who had flown in from all over the world, they spoke mostly about economic issues in their own countries and political priorities.
The United States, agriculture secretary, Ed Schafer, talked about the benefits of biofuels and genetically modified crops. Brazil,s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, spoke for half an hour about how Brazilian biofuels were superior to American ones. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, talked about the need to inject religion into food politics.
Everyone complained about other people,s protectionism ˜ and defended their own.
Food experts on Wednesday, as well as many representatives from poor countries, wondered whether these divided forces could add up to any kind of solution to a global conundrum: how to feed one billion hungry people.