A three-day United Nations conference on spiraling food costs concluded late
on Thursday with the delegates calling on countries and financial
institutions to provide more food for the world?s poor and increase
agriculture production to ensure adequate supplies in the future.

The final declaration, completed Thursday, sought ?urgent and coordinated
action? to address the problems associated with higher food prices, to raise
food production, to lower trade barriers and to increase research in
agriculture. The draft declaration largely sidestepped the issue of
biofuels, which had emerged as the most contentious matter at the
conference. Some developing countries argued that food crops should not be
used for fuel, but the declaration simply urged more research on the
subject.

The draft also made no mention of biotechnology, despite arguments by United
States officials that genetically modified crops were crucial to improving
yields worldwide. Instead, it suggested more investment in ?science and
technology for food and agriculture.?

Approval of the declaration was delayed because of objections by a handful
of Latin American countries, including Argentina and Cuba. They argued that
the declaration did not criticize wealthy nations for policies that they
believe have contributed to the food crisis, like farm subsidies and the
promotion of biofuels.

Some other delegates, meanwhile, were skeptical that anything meaningful
would emerge from the three days of news conferences and nearly nonstop
speeches that included everyone from Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of
France, to Denzil L. Douglas, the prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis.

?Such international get-togethers have ended with lofty statements and
commitments which have not, sadly, been delivered or moved to
implementation,? said Mary Chinery-Hesse, chief adviser to President John
Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana. ?The food crisis which the world faces today is so
serious that it would be disastrous for the survival of mankind if the
conclusions reached suffer the same fate.?

Even so, Lennart Bage, president of the International Fund for Agricultural
Development, an arm of the United Nations, said the conference was a success
if only because it focused the world?s attention on the needs of
agriculture.

?I think there is momentum that is unique over the last 25 years,? he said.
?When did you have heads of state coming to talk about seeds and
fertilizer??

Jacques Diouf, the host of the conference as secretary general of the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said the results of the
conference had exceeded his hopes, even if some of the thornier issues
remain unresolved.

?We took the measure of the problem of hunger in the world correctly,? he
said. ?It is only together that we can confront it.?

The conference was originally scheduled to address climate change and
biofuels. But the focus turned to food costs, which have reached their
highest level in real terms in three decades, and have caused riots and
starvation in some of the world?s poorest countries.

From the start, organizers of the conference challenged the world?s
wealthiest countries in unusually sharp language to provide money to help
the world?s poor and to reinvigorate agricultural research. They also called
on governments to revise or scrap policies that they said contributed to the
problems, like government mandates for biofuels, export restrictions and
subsidies for wealthy farmers.

The United States was a frequent punching bag, and the agriculture
secretary, Ed Schafer, was the recipient of many of the jabs. Many of those
focused on government mandates for biofuels, which Mr. Schafer maintained
played only a minor role in increasing food prices.

United Nations officials estimated that solving the world?s food problem
would cost anywhere from $15 billion to $30 billion a year.

By late on Thursday, there had been pledges totaling several billion
dollars, spread over several years, but no major policy concessions from the
participants in the conference.

Several groups representing small farmers complained that they were not
given much chance to participate, even as heads of state talked about
programs to help them.

?The serious and urgent food and climate crises are being used by political
and economic elites as opportunities to entrench corporate control of world
agriculture and the ecological commons,? said La Via Campesina, an
organization of farmers, indigenous people and farm workers, in a statement.

Donald Kaberuka, president of the African Development Bank, said the world
food crisis was challenging Africa?s poor but also presented an opportunity
to change the course of agriculture on the continent, where crop yields have
remained stagnant for decades.

Now, he said, ?The test will be in implementing the solutions.?

www.checkbiotech.org