White House: Bush concerned about food shortages
(Adds U.N. chief's comments in paragraphs 9-11)
WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is very concerned about global food shortages and has asked senior aides to look into how the United States can help alleviate the problem, the White House said on Monday.
Top finance and development officials from around the world called on Sunday for urgent action to stem rising food prices, warning that social unrest would spread unless the cost of basic staples was contained.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush discussed the issue at length with Cabinet members on Monday and "is very concerned and believes that (developed) nations have a responsibility to help those that are in need."
"We are going through a process right now at looking at ways to meet some of the ongoing food needs of certain countries beyond what has already been provided," Perino said, noting that Washington had provided $2.1 billion in international food aid in fiscal 2007.
"The president's raised the issue with his national security advisers and he's asked State (Department) and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) to look at what can be done in the near term," she told reporters.
Perino, while providing few specifics, said one proposal under consideration would be to buy more of the food used in assistance programs from suppliers closer to needy countries, which would cut transportation costs. U.S. agricultural interests have resisted the idea.
Perino spoke after a weekend meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's Development Committee in Washington where some attendees called for the rising food prices to be addressed at the highest political levels.
Concerns about food costs took on new urgency as senators in Haiti ousted the prime minister after a week of food-related rioting in which at least five people died. There have also been protests in Cameroon, Niger and Burkina Faso in Africa, and in Indonesia and the Philippines.
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said rapidly worsening food shortages around the world had "reached emergency proportions."
"We need not only short-term emergency measures to meet urgent critical needs and avert starvation in many regions across the world, but also a significant increase in long-term productivity in food grain production," Ban said.
"The international community will also need to take urgent and concerted action in order to avert the larger political and security implications of this growing crisis," he told a meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Council with international financial and trade bodies. (Reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations; editing by Eric Beech)
