Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme, said: Countries and delegations pledged more than $1 billion in food aid to meet emergency needs. This is an extraordinary commitment of world leaders to short term food crisis solutions. Much more work will be required to solve the long term need and problems.
The BBC reporting of today's events is very comprehensive and we encourage the readers to visit the BBC website where interesting discussion Forums and articles addressing this issues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7439015.stm
UN states forge global food plan.
BBC news, Rome, By Stephanie Hollmes
Heads of state and government gathered in Rome have pledged to take urgent and co-ordinated action to combat the negative impacts of rising food prices.
The commitment came as part of a final declaration at the end of a three-day UN summit attended by 183 countries to shape a global response to the crisis.
They agreed to strengthen humanitarian interventions, bolster agricultural investment and hold trade talks.
But agreement was delayed as Argentina argued against a statement.
It urged states not to intervene in their own markets.
After hours of wrangling, the country - whose export taxes on soybeans, corn and beef sparked protests from farmers - accepted the declaration but asked that its reservations be noted at the end of the document.
Government representatives welcomed the statement as a signal that agriculture was now firmly back on the agenda.
"For the first time agriculture has been put at the centre of the world stage. For years it has been on the periphery," South Africa's Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana told the BBC.
"It has taken this food crisis to shake the world and make them realise that food security is central to peace and security."
Same song-sheet 
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, said the adoption of a final declaration "is a sign that the international community is speaking with one voice".
But the summit, which was threatened to be overshadowed by the controversial presence of invited heads of state including Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, was not without its critics.
Representatives from non-governmental organisations, who often work in parallel on the ground in developing countries, complained they were excluded from discussions.
ActionAid's food and hunger policy adviser, Magda Kropiwnicka, said the document lacked concrete proposals.
"The document doesn't have any substance," she said. "There are no quantifiable financial commitments. Apart from the existing UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) funds, no money has been given to address the key problem of boosting capacity."
To the table
The FAO, which has underlined that the summit did not seek to secure financial pledges, has said it needs a tenfold increase in its budget - to some $30bn a year - to help farmers grow food for their communities and countries.
Ms Kropiwnicka also said the insistence by powerful states that the solution to the current crisis was the completion of the Doha Round of trade talks was misplaced.
"This is just going to cause even greater havoc. Over the past 30 years, the privatisation of agriculture and disinvestment in the rural economy has left countries without the policy tools to deal with the crisis," she said.
The issue of biofuels was divisive during the summit. Some UN officials have said the rapid growth of the sector may have triggered as much as 30% of global price inflation, by diverting food crops to fuel use and tightening supply.
However, the US - the world's biggest producer of ethanol - insists it is responsible for just 3% of price rises.
Countries finally agreed that the industry provided both "challenges and opportunities" which needed to be investigated further.
'Dangerous signal'
During his address to delegates, Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva passionately defended the potential of ethanol from sugarcane, highlighting the fact that a large portion of the country's transport is powered by sugarcane grown on just 1% of the country's arable land.
Analysts agree that sugarcane ethanol is a greener and more efficient way of producing fuel than the US' heavily subsidised corn industry.
Mr De Schutter was highly critical of the US sector, saying that far from offering an alternative to fossil-based fuels, it pandered to the country's powerful agricultural lobbies.
He said the decision by both the US and EU to increase biofuels targets sent a "dangerous signal" to the market which would only fuel speculation on commodities.
"In the US, the main reason for the biofuel industry is not to combat climate change or create energy independence but to reward powerful lobbies. It is difficult to change the policies of vested interests."
The US meanwhile said it was at the forefront of the fight against hunger and was proud to be singlehandedly responsible for half of the total food aid.
"We are urging every country to step up here. In fact, we have a huge problem with the affordability of food and we are putting $5bn in over the next two years to help this process."
