G8 farm ministers to attack hunger

By Jeremy Smith

CISON DI VALMARINO, Italy (Reuters) - G8 farm ministers urged on Monday that more food be grown to feed the world's hungry, but champions of the poor bemoaned a lack of concrete measures from the three-day meeting.

The ministers denounced protectionism in farming, stressed the importance of a rules-based international system for farm trade, pledged to look at price volatility in commodity markets and also requested a study into coordinated commodity stocks.

A global promise to ease hunger for millions had been made harder by the financial turmoil, while fears about global food security would continue because of price volatility and a delicate balance between supply and demand, the ministers said.

"The enhanced support for agriculture to which this document refers must become a reality and quickly," said the president of the United Nations food agency IFAD, Janayo Nwanze

"The wellbeing of 2 billion poor people who depend on small holder farms in developing countries hinges on it."

Lamenting a lack of real action from ministers representing the world's most developed nations, international aid agency Oxfam said the buck had been passed to other ministers to pledge funding.

"G8 ministers have made an extraordinary admission of collective failure. This would be a sackable offence in any other arena," Chris Leather, Italy-based senior food advisor at Oxfam International said.

In a statement issued at the end of the first-ever meeting of agriculture ministers from the G8 group of countries, the ministers said public and private investment in sustainable farming and rural development needed to be increased.