Food - the first item on the menu in Japan

'Stop wasting food'. They're the words that Gordon Brown uttered as he travelled to the first day of 2008 G8 Summit, which finally got underway in Japan in the midst of a media frenzy and a large police presence.

Global food prices have reached record levels, and though this means we might be feeling the pinch at the supermarket, it's the poorest people who are really suffering. As things stand, 600 million people will be hungry by 2020 - that's ten times the population of the UK.

World leaders have acknowledged that the causes are complicated, with the blame being pinned on a combination of climate change, high oil prices, and the growing pressure for bio-fuels.

It's exactly the message that the Oxfam team in Japan - dressed in giant maize costumes before a mass of photographers - were trying to hammer home to the G8 this weekend. They were bringing attention to the fact that there's mounting evidence that bio-fuels are deepening poverty.

But bio-fuels and the global food crisis are just one of the issues we'll be making a noise about over the next few days. Over one million people from around the world have also called for the G8 to: keep their promises to deliver more aid money; make health care for all of the world's poorest people a reality; stop making climate change worse and start helping poor people adapt.