World powers eye emergency food meeting

France, the United States and G-20 president Mexico will hold a conference call at the end of August to consider whether an emergency international meeting is required, aiming to avoid a repetition of the food price spike that triggered riots in poorer countries in 2008.

Yet even as the third grain surge in four years stirs new fears about food supply and inflation, many say the world's powers are no better prepared to rein in runaway prices. Apart from a global grain database, which has yet to be launched, and the Rapid Response Forum that authorities are considering convening for the first time, the G-20 has few tools.

Instead, it must intervene through influence, perhaps urging the United States to relax its ethanol policy in response to the crisis — difficult only months before a presidential election that may be won or lost in Midwest farm states — or urging Russia not to impose an export ban, as it did two years ago.

“Beyond words, expect little from the G-20 on rising food prices,” said Simon Evenett, a former World Bank official who is now professor of international trade and economic development, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He described the G-20's record on trade as “feeble.”

“With a string of broken promises on protectionism, no serious enforcement, monitoring well after the horse has bolted, and a tendency to pull their punches, any G-20 promises on food trade won't be taken seriously — by the G-20 themselves or by anyone else.”

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