U.S. says ending trade barriers key to food crisis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is boosting food aid and development support to combat the global food crisis, but poor countries must also scrap ill-considered export bans and farm trade barriers, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said spiraling food prices were causing distress and unrest around the world and could mean "deep jeopardy" for countries with bad harvests or those traditionally dependent on food imports.

He said the problem stemmed in part from price distortions that "often arise from questionable government policies, notably export restrictions and high tariffs."

"Over 40 developing countries unwisely have put trade-restricting policy measures into place, export restrictions, for example," Negroponte said in a speech in Washington. He did not name those countries.

"These restrictions should be lifted. They have taken food off the global market, driven prices higher and isolated farmers from the one silver lining of the rise in food prices: higher incomes for agriculture producers," he said.

Negroponte said the Bush administration had pledged some $5 billion to fight global hunger in 2008 and 2009, including humanitarian aid for food emergencies and assistance to improve agricultural infrastructure and distribution channels in developing countries.

While tackling trade barriers, including through the Doha Round of World Trade Organization talks, the world also needs to remove barriers to the use of biotechnology to produce more and better varieties of plant and animal foods, he said.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert, editing by Todd Eastham)