UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will issue an urgent plea to world leaders at a food summit in Rome on Tuesday to immediately suspend trade restrictions, agricultural taxes and other price controls that have helped fuel the highest food prices in 30 years, according to U.N. officials.
Ban is seeking to prod more than two dozen nations that have imposed such measures to reverse course. The United Nations also will urge the United States and other nations to consider phasing out subsidies for food-based bio fuels — such as ethanol — and to hammer out a pact with poor countries that would reduce agricultural tariffs and subsidies that have harmed poor farmers.
The immediate goal of the summit Tuesday through Thursday will be to secure a massive flow of assistance to the world’s hungriest people and to ensure that subsistence farmers across the globe will have seeds and fertilizers.
