STWR - Share The World's Resources

Free-trade policies long advanced by World Bank President Robert Zoellick and U.S. President George W. Bush are losing favor as countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America find they can't buy enough food to feed their people.

As food and fuel prices continue to increase, writes Joseph Stiglitz, the world must look to new patterns of consumption and production.

The World Bank's response to the food crisis is a 'fire-extinguisher' approach that fails to address its root causes, argues Eurodad - namely the unregulated process of trade liberalisation, structural adjustment and stringent conditionality implemented by the World Bank and the IMF in the first place.

The Rome summit of the Food & Agriculture Organisation failed to address the roots of the current price and hunger crises. These lie in incoherent and unfair global food policies, says Sue Branford.

The food crisis concerns not only biofuels, says Walden Bello, but the structural adjustment of agriculture that has destroyed the self-sufficiency of developing economies.

Free market economics are the problem, not the solution. They have exposed poor countries to the full force of the food crisis.