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(LIP-do) -- Peruvian president Alan García asked the Heads of State and Government of the V European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean Summit (EU-LAC today to take realistic and specific measures against the world food crisis and climate change, and the strengthening of equity principles.

García inaugurated today the opening plenary session of the V Summit of Heads of State and Government of the EU-LAC, which takes places at the Museo de la Nacion in Lima.

"From this summit, our people expect solutions, approaches and goals, rather than just declarations or simple meetings. I am convinced that our common wish is to give this V summit maturity to design a specific agenda on food, reforestation and strengthening of the principles of equality, through inclusion", he said.

The President suggested that all of the participating countries compromise to increase by 2 percent their food production as a way to avoid a shortage in the future.

"The efforts I ask from each one of you, our ministers, is to act on this one modest method: increase by 2 percent the output of your acres of cultivated lands so that humanity doesn't fall into the horrible hell of famine in some years," he said.

He insisted that it was vital that the Declaration of Lima include "concrete methods that go further than the routine and good intentions," and confirmed that the towns of Latin America and Europe expect decisions of its representatives in order to face the food crisis.

He indicated that its great that they have been able to point out the actual cause of the crisis, which is the change in cultivation for the production of biofuels and the increase in consumption of towns, but the real situation is that hundreds of millions of human beings are threatened by hunger "despite living in an era of advanced technology that mankind has made in the last decades."

President Garcia asked for "concrete decisions". "I hope tha the burden doesn't fall on us for not having made concrete plans to avoid this situation facing our people, because of the increase in fertilization, in biofuels, because others consume much more than we do," he said.

In regards to the protection of the environment, he restated his proposition to create a fund to reforest the amazon, provided that there be a small tax on natural gas and petroleum me established which would give the government 20 billions of dollars annually to reforest 10 millions acres a year.

Finally, he congratulated the decision the Spanish government made in supporting Latin America with 1,500 millions of dollars for water and sewage projects.


News Source: Andina