President Bush joins leaders of the world's richest nations this week in Hokkaido, Japan.

Senator Dick Lugar (R, Ind.) has written to the President to say global help to fight food inflation must go far beyond emergency food assistance.

"We must establish a solid basis for global food security," he said.

Senator Lugar, both an advocate for biofuels and the fight against hunger, listed major policy recommendations to address the food crisis, including:

• To boost investments in international rural development and agricultural productivity by:

- doubling G8 assistance by 2009,

- increasing G8 funding for agricultural research and

- establishing a global network of land-grant colleges.

• To facilitate an "efficient, fair and transparent" trade system by:

- encouraging the conclusion of the World Trade Organisation's Doha Development Round,

- encouraging the G8 to help end Europe's "irrational opposition to genetically modified crops and foods" and

- endorsing greater transparency and information sharing in international futures trading, notably on oil contracts.

• To seek to stabilise energy markets and promote alternative fuels by:

- encouraging the opening of global energy markets, including lifting the US tariff on Brazil's ethanol imports,

- urging the G8 to increase development assistance for renewable energy alternatives in developing countries, where it could help electrify rural areas and reduce energy costs to local agriculture, and

- endorsing a multilateral Clean Technology Fund to reduce the effects of climate change.

Also on Lugar's side is World Bank president Robert Zoellick, who formerly served the Bush Administration as US trade representative and deputy secretary of state.

In June, Robert Zoellick said an international assessment showed that 20 countries would require "immediate assistance" to bolster nutrition programs by the time of the G8 meeting.