US Food Summit to meet; may call for global biofuels development moratorium

In Italy, the UN Summit on Food Security meets this week in Rome, with biofuels on the agenda. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is attending, in hopes of convincing attendees that ethanol is not to blame for world hunger, and intends to forestall a call for a worldwide moratorium on biofuels development, or biofuels production. “It’s up to Brazil, a centre of excellence in ethanol production, to prove that it’s fully possible to make ethanol output compatible with the production of food,” Lula told Reuters. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is expected to hold talks with Lula prior to the summit, which begins tomorrow.

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