G8 meeting to focus on poverty, food security and market price

ROME, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Group of Eight (G8) agriculture ministers will discuss issues of world hunger, food security and the fluctuation of market prices when they meet in Italy at the coming weekend, Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said on Tuesday.

He said the theme of "productive identity" will also be key at the two-day G8 agriculture summit to be held from April 18 to 20 in Cison di Valmarino, near Treviso in the Veneto region.

"In agriculture there are two well-defined worlds: those that have agriculture with a productive identity such as Italy, which counts 4,500 typical products, and those that must invent their own agriculture. The latter would like to standardize production, tastes and consumption," the minister said.

The G8 ministers would speak of "real agriculture, practiced by farmers who harvest food from the earth, not by multinationals," as well as the effects of the global economic crisis on world hunger, Zaia said.

He also expressed his hope that the ministerial meeting would result in a "shared document" that would be sent to the G8 summit to be held in July on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena, where G8 heads of state will meet on major global and regional issues.