Sarkozy calls for G20 agriculture ministers to establish farm database

"French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged G20 agriculture ministers to agree at talks in Paris next week on a farm database that would gather and store market-sensitive information such as food stocks," Reuters reports. Sarkozy's call came during a speech Thursday "to farm unions gathered at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development headquarters," the news service writes (6/16).

"Speculation, panic and lack of transparency have seen prices soaring," Sarkozy said earlier this week at an international conference on commodities and raw materials, the Associated Press reports. "Is that the world we want? France is saying quite clearly it is not."

"Even if we all pull out all the stops, we may not be able to achieve what we have to achieve to feed 9 billion people in 2050," Sarkozy said (Casert, 6/15).