The UN secretary-general has urged world leaders gathering at a summit on food security to make the "hard decisions" necessary to bring down soaring global food prices.

"For years, falling food prices and rising production lulled the world into complacency," Ban Ki-moon said on the eve of the three-day UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) summit in Rome.

"Governments put off hard decisions and overlooked the need to invest in agriculture.

"Today, we are literally paying the price. If not handled properly, this issue could trigger a cascade of other crises - affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world," the UN chief said.

Ban will press nations at the summit on Tuesday to ease a wide variety of farming taxes, export bans and import tariffs to help millions of the world's poor cope with the highest food prices in 30 years, UN officials said.

He also intends to urge the US and other nations to phase out subsidies for food-based biofuels, including ethanol, that have been used to encourage farmers to grow crops for energy use rather than human consumption.

The UN chief wants donor nations to develop a concrete plan to revitalize and redirect the global response to hunger.

A UN official in New York, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "What we are looking for is at least an agreement on how to deal with the issue of biofuels and subsidies that is not detrimental to the needs of poor people."

Ban's recommendations are contained in a 38-page draft report to be presented at the summit by the UN task force that he created to deal with the food crisis.

It could cost $15bn to implement, according to preliminary figures with governments, donors, UN agencies and the World Bank all contributing, officials said.

Task force recommendations

The task force's draft report contains two sets of recommended actions - one responding to immediate needs, the other to longer-term needs.

In the short term, Ban plans to urge the US and other developed countries to negotiate an agreement with poorer nations to scale back on agricultural tariffs that hurt struggling, subsistence farmers.

He will also call for targeted subsidies so that poor farmers can increase their pension payments and buy more fertilizer and seeds.

In the long term, he hopes to increase farm production by boosting investment in agriculture, irrigation and roads, the UN officials said.

The task force has the backing of UN food agencies and major players such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Biofuels resistance

But the biofuels proposal is already meeting resistance.

On Monday, three biofuels trade group leaders from the US, Canada and Europe wrote to Jacques Diouf, the FAO director-general, to protest against the wording of the UN plan.

"There is no question that the escalating prices for food require serious attention and action by the world's leaders," the trade leaders wrote.

"It would be highly precipitous, however, for the United Nations or other international bodies to single out biofuels as the major cause for escalating food prices and take actions that might lead to even higher food prices."

World prices for food are expected to fall from current peaks in the coming years, but will remain "substantially above" average levels from the past decade, according to a joint agricultural report issued by the FAO and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Price rises are being blamed on high oil prices, changing diets, urbanization, expanding populations, flawed trade policies, extreme weather, growth in biofuels production and speculation.

People have protested and riots have broken out from Africa to Asia, raising fears that millions more will suffer from malnutrition.

The lead-up to the summit has been clouded by the planned attendance of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, which sparked condemnation from Australia and Britain.

Stephen Smith, Australia's foreign minister, called Mugabe's presence in Rome "obscene", saying: "This is the person who has presided over the starvation of his people. This is the person who has used food aid in a politically motivated way."

The scheduled presence of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has also generated controversy.

The Israeli ambassador to Italy, Gideon Meir, said on Monday that "it was inopportune to invite him, since it gives him a forum to speak in and to shake hands with other leaders".

PHOTO CAPTION

Needy people queue to get free food distributed at a Shrine in a suburb of Islamabad, Pakistan Thursday, May 29, 2008.

Al-Jazeera