A UN global food crisis summit in Rome risks embarrassing failure to reach any formal agreement on combating the hunger crisis that is threatening a billion people worldwide.
Delegates from 183 countries at the talks were supposed to issue a resounding declaration today on "eliminating hunger and securing food for all".
But squabbling about trade barriers and geopolitics raised the prospect of the statement being scrapped, though diplomats did manage to circumvent a heated debate about biofuels which had put the United States and Brazil on the defensive.
The meeting was called by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation to seek ways to secure food supplies in the face of rising demand, especially from rapidly developing Asian countries, poor harvests and rising fuel costs.
Those factors have contributed to a doubling of commodity prices over the last couple of years which the World Bank says has put 100 million people at risk of joining the 850 million already going hungry.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development sees prices of rice, corn and wheat retreating from peaks but still up to 50 per cent higher in the next decade. The FAO says food production must rise by half before 2050 to meet demand.
Despite repeated urgings at the summit to stop talking about hunger and take action, it was the wording of the final document that threatened to undermine the talks' success.
Swedish delegate Tomas Dahlman said most countries disagreed with trade barriers such as export curbs and duties, like those that grain and beef exporter Argentina uses to protect consumers against food inflation - sparking strikes by powerful farmers.
"Most countries in the world think these are the wrong measures, that's why this language is being proposed in the declaration," he said.
US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said countries should understand that such trade restrictions "actually exacerbate" the problem of food price inflation.
"We understand that countries want to protect their food supply and make sure that there's enough food for their own citizens but when there's a lock-out from the marketplace ... prices actually go up," Mr Schafer told reporters in Rome.
Biofuels were the most contentious issue at the summit, with the United States and Brazil defending their use of maize and sugarcane respectively. Washington acknowledges this contributes to food inflation, but says the impact is marginal.
The final declaration was likely to appease both sides with talk of the "challenges and opportunities" of biofuels, which Mr Schafer called "acceptable".
Delegates were seeking last-minute agreement on the text ahead of a closing news conference delayed until this evening.
Ghana's President John Kufuor said that, given the urgency of the food crisis, "it would be disastrous for the survival of mankind if the conclusions reached suffer the same fate" as earlier fruitless international summits.
Although the summit was not meant to produce promises of aid or set new global policies, it has put hunger on the agenda of July's Group of Eight summit in Japan. By then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to have issued an action plan.