The financial crisis,food crisis. What about starving countries?

In recent months, the financial crisis has pushed back the food crisis, which had dominated the headlines for the past eighteen months. But falling prices and corporate bankruptcies cannot hide an appalling fact - if not starvation, at least a shortage of food looms in the future.

Last week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) held its 53rd meeting in Rome, and was attended by Russia. However, it failed to offer any meaningful solution.

The situation is complicated - currently, 970 million people across the world are suffering from lack of food - 44 million more than at the start of the year. The world economic downturn is threatening to make things worse.

Only Brazil, Russia, the United States, Canada and Australia have freely available land and water resources that can be used for farming. The arable potential is shrinking, while the world's population is growing and will do so for several decades more. This means food prices will continue to climb, and food might become a luxury item for most of the planet's population.

What does FAO propose? Nothing new: the rich should share with the poor, it says. FAO director Jacques DioufJacques Diouf urged developing countries to contribute $30 billion each year to fight starvation on the planet. The international body also called for the withdrawal of subsidies from farmers in rich countries (subsidies improve their competitive position on the world market) and abolition of customs tariffs and other obstacles in the way of produce from the poor countries to world markets.

This approach is likely to create problems for farmers in developed nations rather than solve those of developing ones. No developed country will ever agree to reduce its own consumption to help the poor, because the amounts allocated will be enough only to ease the conscience of bureaucrats and not to feed the starving.

Indeed, can any high-ranking official take half of his child's ration and give it to a starving boy or girl in another country? Or sacrifice his family's annual holidays to contribute the money to the needy?

What about advanced farming technologies? Developed countries are in no great hurry to share them with developing nations, because that would mean reductions in exports and a blow to their own farmers. The poor countries are unable to carry out a technological revolution of their own. So it only remains to compensate the poor by rendering them aid. The problem, however, is: how long can this go on?