Participants at the United Nations world food summit in Rome have promised to help poor nations grow more food.

However, they did not set a concrete objective or time frame. And the necessary funds were not pledged either. In his opening speech, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said drastic measures were needed to halt increasing food shortages. He added that 70 percent more food needs to be grown by the time the world population reaches nine billion in 2050. Critics say the conference is an exercise in futility since the leaders of the world's most affluent nations are absent from it. More than a billion people worldwide do not have enough to eat.

Photo: FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf at the UN Hunger Summit (Flickr/FAO News/Damien Meyer)