Rising food prices was the main topic of a U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) conference on Latin America and the Caribbean which began
in Brasilia on Monday.

The increase in global food prices was top of the agenda of a U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO) conference on Latin America and the Caribbean
which began on Monday in Brasilia.

And biofuels were in the firing line.

Critics of biofuels say the increased production of crops for ethanol and
biodiesel is using up land that would otherwise be used for food and is
contributing to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Brazil has become the world's largest exporter of ethanol -- derived from
sugar cane -- and the growing criticism led Brazil's President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva to defend his country's production of biofuels.

 BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA
SAYING:
"Biofuels are not the villain that is threatening food insecurity in
poor nations. On the contrary, if they are developed according to the reality
of each country, they can become an essential instrument in generating income
and helping countries out of the situation of food and energy
insecurity"

Across the globe, bread, milk and other foods have become more expensive,
fuelling inflation in some countries.

Food riots in Haiti over high prices for rice, beans and other food staples
led to the removal of the government on Saturday.

But Brazil, which refused to sign up to a code of conduct for biofuel
production, argues that it has the world's fastest-growing food surplus stocks
and that sugar cane for fuel represents less than one percent of the country's
total production.

Stefanie McIntyre