Food Summit, Overcoming Disputes, Calls for Boosting Farm Aid

Food Summit, Overcoming Disputes, Calls for Boosting Farm Aid. World leaders overcame disputes over biofuels and last-minute objections by Argentina, pledging to boost spending on agriculture in developing countries and ease trade restrictions to counter hunger and soaring food prices.

Delegates from 181 nations at a UN-sponsored Food Security Summit in Rome closed a three-day meeting late yesterday with promises to push the United Nations' 12-year-old pledge to halve the number of malnourished people, now 860 million, by 2015 and help farmers from developing countries produce for international markets.

UN officials called the meeting a success for focusing attention on food prices ahead of a meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight nations in Japan next month. Other participants were more skeptical, saying the discussions resulted in an essentially meaningless statement.