Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan and other members of Nelson Mandela’s global crisis task force turned their attention to world hunger on Wednesday, focusing on soaring food prices.

The Nobel laureates and human rights activists the former South African president brought together as The Elders at his birthday last year have sent peace missions to the Middle East and Sudan’s Darfur and spoken out against sham elections and political violence in Zimbabwe.

With the food crisis, they were taking on an issue that some experts say could lead to new wars, and that has touched all parts of the world, rich and poor.

Food riots have broken out in the poorest countries, and the crisis has set back efforts to lift Africa out of poverty.

Tutu, the Elders chairman and former Cape Town Anglican archbishop, called the right to food “fundamental.”

Tutu _ speaking after the meeting to an audience that included British entrepreneur Richard Branson, a main supporter of The Elders _ said world leaders were wasting resources fighting terror instead of poverty.

“We have it in us to make this a better world, a caring world, a compassionate world in which everyone would enjoy the right to food and freedom from hunger,” he said.

Another Elder, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the solution was not just humanitarian aid today, but steps to improve food security tomorrow.

Annan called for a focus on small-scale farmers. He encouraged banks and other lenders to extend services to small farmers so that they can afford fertilizer and other productivity-boosting measures and to help them take on the risks associated with expanding their enterprises.

He added governments needed to improve rural infrastructure, and scientists need to develop better seeds and improve soil in Africa, “the only continent that cannot feed itself.”

Mandela, who turns 90 Friday, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, at which The Elders consulted with Olivier de Schutter, appointed by the U.N. last year to study the food crisis, and experts from the development group ActionAid International.

Along with Tutu and Annan, some of the Elders include former President Jimmy Carter; former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland; former Brazil President Fernando Cardoso; and former Irish President Mary Robinson.

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