Brazil's Lula: food riots are wake-up call
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Foods riots in Haiti and elsewhere are a wake-up call for the world to fight harder against poverty and reduce agricultural trade barriers, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday.
"It was necessary to watch dramatic scenes for the international community to wake up to the urgency of finding a definitive solution to the challenge of poverty," Lula said during a lunch with visiting Indian President Pratibha Patil.
Protests in Haiti over high prices for rice, beans and other staples ousted the government on Saturday.
Rising food prices showed that the world "was poorly equipped to face and solve the worst evil of our times," namely hunger, Lula said.
Food riots also underlined the need for an agreement in the so-called Doha round of global trade negotiations, Lula said. Rich countries need to reduce farms subsidies and trade barriers to allow poor countries to generate income with food exports, Lula said on Wednesday during a conference of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization in Brasilia.
Either the world solves the unfair trade system, or "every time there's unrest like in Haiti, we adopt emergency measures and send a little bit of food to temporarily ease hunger."
If Europe doesn't open its market to farm imports, "someone will have to assume the historic responsibility," Lula warned.
Across the globe, bread, milk and other foods have become more expensive, fueling inflation in some countries.
Patil, whose 3-day visit to Brazil was her first foreign trip since taking office last year, praised Lula's flagship social welfare program "Zero Hunger."
Experts blamed price increases on strong Asian demand, adverse climate in some producer countries and increased use of corn to produce fuel in the United States.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization warned this week during a conference in Brasilia that rising prices threatened to increase malnutrition in Latin America.
(For more stories on global food price rises, please see here)
