UN food agency urges G20 to act on rising prices and huge waste

The world’s top farm producers in the G20 countries must agree coordinated action to ease worries about food prices, the head of the UN’s food agency said yesterday, as he and other experts bemoaned a huge global waste of food and water.

The third price surge in four years has come after droughts in the US and poor crops from Russia and the Black Sea bread basket region.

Senior figures from the G20 will discuss the food price rises this week, but any decisions on action are unlikely before a mid- September report on grain supply, officials have said.