• Financial Times, Tuesday, June 3, 2008 10:30 AM

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, blames the rising price of food worldwide on governmental subsidies to develop biofuels and says that "nobody" understands the diversion of food to fuel cars."

Speaking to more than 60 heads of state gathered in Rome at the U.N.'s food summit yesterday, Diouf claimed "rich countries have created a distortion of world market with the $272 billion spent on supporting their agriculture." In a document, the U.N. task force on food also says that the world needed to "reassess" subsidies and tariffs on biofuels.

The FAO's food summit is the first global reaction to the surge in food prices in the last two years. Ed Schafer, U.S. agriculture secretary, says some countries have turned biofuels into a "bogeyman" in spite of the fact that, in Washington's opinion, they contributed only 3% to the recent rise in food prices.

Read the whole story at Financial Times »