VP TO SPEAK AT WORLD FOOD SUMMIT

Rome, Nov 17 (ANTARA) - Vice President Boediono is scheduled to speak at the World Food Summit at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) head office in Rome, Italy, on Wednesday.

The vice president and his entourage left Jakarta on Tuesday morning and to arrive in Rome in the afternoon local time, vice presidential special media staff Yopie Hidayat said here on Tuesday.

Hidayat said the World Food Summit would take place in Rome from Monday to Wednesday (November 16-18, 2009) and be attended by heads of state/government from FAO member countries.

Besides attending the summit, the Indonesian vice president in the company of Agriculture Minister Suwarno would have a series of bilateral talks with a number of his counterparts from other countries.

At the opening of the summit on Monday, the world's leaders agreed to renew their commitment to reducing the problem of starvation around the world.

They also agreed to prevent the reduction of domestic and international funds to support agriculture and investment sector, to step up global partnership to deal with the problem of starvation, and to pro-actively manage climate change problem that could influence agriculture sector.

In his opening address, United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for world's attention to the food problem in the future.

"There is no food security without climate security," Ban Ki-moon said, adding that if the snow at Himalaya mountain melted, it would have a negative impact on the welfare of millions of people in China and Asia.

According to FAO record, around one billion people around the world were under threat of starvation.

Therefore, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf stressed on the importance of food production in the region with poor people and the improvement of investment there.

Diouf said in a number of developed countries two until four percent of the population were able to produce food for their people and even for export.

But in the developing countries, 60 to 80 percent of the population were unable to meet the food demand of their people.