St Petersburg, Russia, June 6 - Russia is prepared to spend money to boost its role in world grain markets and is seeking a way to resolve global market imbalances and hunger, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday.
Medvedev, in an address to the World Grain Forum in St Petersburg, said grain exporters should co-ordinate actions to support prices at acceptable levels and that the creation of a Black Sea pool of grain suppliers would be discussed.
"We are preparing to strengthen our position on the world grain market and to put financial and organisational support behind it," Medvedev said.
"We should work out a mechanism that can regulate supply and demand imbalances on the world grain market," he said.
Medvedev said market protectionism was a risk to developing the global farm sector.
"Excessive protectionism is damaging for sustainable development, including in the agricultural sector, although it is flourishing and often leads to speculation on the grain market," he said.
"Today, the number of people starving in the world has reached 1 billion. Every sixth person on our planet is starving," he told participants in the forum.
"Every five seconds a child dies from hunger on this planet. The world, to a large degree, is more concerned with its income and profit. This is immoral."
Medvedev said Russia supported production of bioethanol from non-food resources.
"The technology now exists and we think the world community has to find a compromise between the issues of energy and food security. The growth of biofuels should not become a reason for a growing deficit of food grain."
He said Russia had entered the ranks of the top three global wheat exporters and that Black Sea countries should discuss ways to co-operate on supplies to the wider world.
"We plan discussions about co-operation in the Black Sea basin. We hope to discuss the possibility of creating a regional grain pool that could improve co-ordination and information exchange," he said.
Separately on Saturday Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik said Russia would be able to double its annual grain exports to between 40 million and 50 million tonnes when its harvest reaches a level of 135 million tonnes.