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UN calls for farming revolution | |
(about 5 hours later) | |
A UN-sponsored report has called for urgent changes to the way food is produced, as soaring food prices risk driving millions of people to poverty. | |
The Unesco study recommends better safeguards to protect resources and more sustainable farming practices, such as producing food locally. | |
More natural and ecological farming techniques should be used, it says. | More natural and ecological farming techniques should be used, it says. |
Haiti, Egypt, the Philippines and parts of West Africa have seen riots recently over the costs of rice, wheat and soya. | |
Unesco, a UN educational body, says increased demand for food in India and China, the growing market for biofuel crops, and rising oil prices are some of the factors behind the rising prices. | |
class="" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_04_08_sr_exec_sum_130408_final.pdf">Executive summary of the IAASTD report [144KB] Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader href="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html">Download the reader here | |
A group of 400 experts spent three years researching the report, which was unveiled on Tuesday at Unesco in Paris. | |
The authors found: | |
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The BBC's Nick Miles says that with food prices at the top of the international political agenda, this is effectively a blueprint for the future of global agriculture. | |
Unesco says wheat prices have risen 130% percent since March 2007 while soy prices have jumped 87%. | |
"The status quo is no longer an option," Guilhem Calvo, a Unesco expert, told a news conference in Paris. | |
"We must develop agriculture less dependent on fossil fuels, that favours the use of locally available resources." | |
'Alleviate hunger' | |
The report said rising oil prices had made transport and farm production more expensive and had led to more crops being grown to make biofuels for vehicles. | |
It said biofuel production had mixed effects, adding: "The diversion of agricultural crops to fuel can raise food prices and reduce our ability to alleviate hunger throughout the world." | |
It also warned large swaths of central and western Asia and Africa were running out of water. | |
Farming was responsible for more than a third of the world's most degraded land, it said. | |
Unesco noted the ''considerable influence'' of big transnational corporations in North America and Europe. | |
By contrast, Latin America and the Caribbean are largely dependent on imported food, it said. | |
Over the weekend the World Bank outlined a plan of aid and loans to developing nations to help deal with the problem. |
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