They could feed the world or at least a good part of it. Millions of hectares of valuable farmland are lying fallow in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union but tariffs and protectionism are keeping these countries from bringing more food to the table.

Since the collapse of communism, some 23 million hectares of prime cropland, an area almost as large as the United Kingdom, is growing weeds. With the world wheat price up 118 per cent in a year, you might have expected a scramble to plough the black soil of Russia and Ukraine but there are problems. Both countries have erected export barriers to secure domestic food supplies and stem price inflation.

In London this week, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development joined forces with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation and a host of agribusiness companies to call for less protection and more investment.

Hoarding is the new blot on the rural landscape. As food prices soar around the world - the UN estimates a global price surge of 40 per cent in less than a year - governments that once fretted about the need to subsidise their farmers and protect them from cheap imports are now stockpiling food. The tariff barriers are still high but they face a different way. Instead of keeping cheap food out, we are now trying to keep it in.

It's all economic nonsense but it makes political sense for fragile governments and that is why the Doha round of trade talks are still stuck in Geneva. The effort that began in the Gulf state in 2001 was intended to lower the barriers of world trade for the benefit of poorer countries and it therefore focused heavily on agriculture. Most of the world's poor live off the land. The theme was the reduction of tariffs on agricultural imports and subsidies paid to farmers in the US, the EU and other rich countries, such as Japan, Switzerland and South Korea. There has been some headway, in particular in Brussels where the EU is offering to halve its farm tariffs.

But the world has changed - the silos bursting with unsold grain and the butter mountains that so embarrassed the Eurocrats have gone. Where there was abundance and farming losses, there is now shortage and profits and the political equation has changed.

Here is a chance to free up trade in food permanently without great harm. Surely, the task is to seize the day? If you set aside nitpicking over numbers and special deals for the weak and feeble, there is overall agreement in Geneva on a package for farmers. What holds it back is the old quid pro quo. America and Europe want the emerging trade giants - Argentina, Brazil, China, India, and South Africa to open up their industrial markets and they won't do it.

No one will agree to cut tariffs because they see no urgency to change. Why make a sacrifice when everyone is making money? While cereal farmers get fat in America and Europe, manufacturers in East Asia thrive. Even the economies of the least-developed countries are finally taking off, expanding by 7 per cent in 2006, according to the UN.

But it is not all good and the burden of expensive food is already bearing down on African countries that import grain. Over the winter food riots erupted in several West African states and we can expect more pockets of suffering as the supply-demand balance in rice goes into deficit. More food is needed but the answer is not to hoard but to invest in farms which means opening doors rather than shutting them.

Consider the plight of EU livestock farmers, big losers in the wheat price explosion. A doubling in the cost of animal feed has sent much of Europe's pig and poultry industry into crisis. Logically, the solution is to open our ports to shipments of grain. Tariffs have been cut to nil but there is still a problem - we in Europe have strong views about what pigs and hens should eat.

The world's cereal farmers are migrating to genetically modified soya and maize and new varieties are planted each year in an effort to raise yields. However, the European Commission operates a go-slow policy in approving imports of GM grain, not for health and safety reasons but out of political opposition to the GM crops industry. The consequence is that Europeans are sourcing animal feed from an ever-shrinking supply of grains. The EU's agricultural directorate has protested, giving warning of a potential price explosion but the Health Commissioner is unmoved.

Politically inspired barriers to trade are a blight on the world. The market clamours for more cereals, yet Ukraine, once touted as Europe's bread basket, is missing an opportunity to exploit its advantage. Huge investments in farm machinery and infrastructure are needed to put the former Soviet republic into export mode but there is a catch.

You cannot buy farmland in Ukraine, a law passed in 2001 prohibits its transfer to anyone, foreigner or Ukrainian - a bizarre and misguided attempt to protect the nation's rural heritage is wrecking the country's farming potential.

What is it about farming and the land that inspires such folly? Karl Marx was disparaging about the agricultural sector - he famously condemned “the idiocy of rural life” in The Communist Manifesto. Wherever inspired and by whomever, the political idiocy of farm policy is promoted and sustained by the interests of urban-dwelling politicians with time-horizons that extend no further than the next harvest. It is a recipe that will make many go hungry for some years to come.

carl.mortished@thetimes.co.uk

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