Global response needed on food crisis: Zoellick

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Wednesday called for a new coordinated global response to deal with spiraling food prices exacerbating shortages, hunger and malnutrition around the globe.

Speaking ahead of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, Zoellick said the global food crisis now required the attention of political leaders in every country, since higher prices and price volatility were likely to stay for some time.

The crisis also highlighted the need to conclude a long-awaited deal in the Doha global trade talks, which would cut distorting agricultural subsidies and open markets for food imports.

"We need a new deal for global food policy," Zoellick said. "This new deal should focus not only on hunger and malnutrition, access to food and its supply, but also the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, the marginalization of women and others, and economic resiliency and growth."

BLOCKING EXPORTS

Zoellick, a former U.S. chief trade negotiator, trade barriers on food hurt the poor and deterred farm production.

A fairer and more open global trading system for agriculture would give farmers in developing countries more opportunities and confidence to expand food output, he added.

"The solution is to break the Doha Development Agenda impasse in 2008," Zoellick said, "There is a good deal on the table. It's now or never".