LETTER : Starvation is not inevitable: are we prepared to stop it?

GEOFFREY Lean's conclusions are correct: the answer to world food shortages is to encourage production, investment, education and training and technology in the world's poorest farming countries.

The answer is not a reversal of the Common Agricultural Policy reforms designed to reduce Europe's surpluses. These reforms were an important first step in the right direction.

If we over-produce, we dump our subsidised excess on world markets and we bankrupt ourselves in the process, meaning that vital development aid funds are used up on our own farm budget. And what will happen when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe become productive? No, the solution is an improvement in productivity not in production - India has trebled her population in the last 50 years but has managed to feed it through improvements in rural infrastructure, genetic advances and new technologies. It is no answer for the surpluses of the rich to feed the poor.

Terry Wynn

MEP Merseyside East and Wigan