Just two of the 19 dishes on the dinner menu at the G8 food shortages summit

Guardian UK

As the food crisis began to bite, the rumblings of discontent grew louder. Finally, after a day of discussing food shortages and soaring prices, the famished stomachs of the G8 leaders could bear it no longer.

The most powerful bellies in the world were last night compelled to stave off the great Hokkaido Hunger by fortifying themselves with an eight-course, 19-dish dinner prepared by 25 chefs. This multi-pronged attack was launched after earlier emergency lunch measures - four courses washed down with Château-Grillet 2005 - had failed to quell appetites enlarged by agonising over feeding the world's poor.

But not since Marie Antoinette was supposed to have leaned from a Versailles palace window and suggested that the breadless peasants eat cake can leaders have demonstrated such insensitivity to daily hardship than at the luxury Windsor hotel on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

GM Will Not Solve Current Food Crisis, says Industry Boss

Guardian UK

Martin Taylor, chairman of Syngenta, said the current industry focus on farmers in rich countries meant it would take 20 years to launch crop varieties designed to address the problems of the developing world. He told the Guardian: "GM won't solve the food crisis, at least not in the short term."

His words appear to contradict statements from UK politicians, industry bodies and the European Commission that GM technology should be considered as a way to address chronic shortages and soaring prices of basic staples across the world.

Haiti’s poor resort to eating mud as prices rise

MSNBC

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.