ROME — Outside the U.N. emergency summit on food here, protesters dressed as ears of corn. Inside, Bush administration officials Wednesday found themselves on the defensive on a wide range of U.S. policies, from biofuel production to genetic engineering and subsidies.
Delegates clashed during the second day of the three-day meeting over how much blame can be assigned to biofuels for the meteoric rise in food prices. The U.S. is an enthusiastic supporter of the robust and heavily subsidized biofuel industry, with plans to allocate about a quarter of its corn crop to the lucrative production of ethanol.
But many other nations and numerous aid agencies contend that too much food is ending up in fuel tanks and not on dinner tables, deepening a threat of global starvation.
Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer, leading the U.S. delegation, emerged from a series of side meetings and acknowledged that a struggle was underway to reach compromise language on the biofuels issue.
Drafts of a final summit declaration, circulating late Wednesday, reflected watered-down recommendations of "further studies" on biofuels, hardly viewed as a decisive position.
Finding consensus on biofuels, which are made from corn, sugar cane, palm oil and other foodstuffs, had been one of the goals outlined by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in opening the summit here at the headquarters of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO. Opponents and supporters diverge wildly on the pros and cons of biofuels and how harmful they may or may not be.
Schafer maintains that bumper U.S. crops provide plenty of corn for both eating and filling tanks. He says biofuels account for no more than 3% of the hike in prices of commodities, which in some cases have doubled in recent years.
Several U.N. agencies, relief groups and the International Monetary Fund, however, say as much as 30% of the increase could be blamed on biofuels.
"Even 1% represents hardship for 16 million people," said Madelon Meijer, agricultural policy advisor for the British aid agency Oxfam. "Three percent already plunges a lot more people into poverty."
Oxfam was one of several groups staging demonstrations outside the conference, with people dressed as corn carrying out symbolic tugs of war between the hungry and those needing fuel. Oxfam argues that the amount of grain required to produce enough ethanol to fill an SUV's tank could feed one person for a year.
