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© Financial Times
The G20 has called off an emergency ministerial meeting to discuss rising agricultural commodities prices, only weeks after France and the most senior food official at the UN formally convened the gathering.

The rare climbdown comes as the cost of agricultural commodities from corn to soyabean remains close to its highest in nominal terms.

Washington, which this year chairs a new G20 body focused on agriculture, said in a statement that leading countries had decided food commodities markets were "functioning", and an emergency meeting of the Rapid Response Forum was not "necessary at this time". The forum is part of the G20-backed Agricultural Market Information System, created last year at the prompting of France.

"Governments around the world, including large agricultural exporters in G20, have exercised prudence and responsibility in policy making, including by avoiding export bans that exacerbated volatility in 2007-08," said Karen Johnson, chargé d'affaires at the US embassy to the UN agencies in Rome.

However, the food market is on edge amid conflicting signals from Moscow about a potential export ban on grains. Russia, the world's third-largest exporter of wheat, imposed a brutal export ban in 2010 that sent grain prices soaring.

The cancellation comes less than three weeks after François Hollande, French president, and José Graziano da Silva, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, called a meeting of G20 agriculture ministers in Rome for October 16. It was set to be the first meeting of the RRF, created to "promote early discussion . . . about abnormal international market conditions".

UN officials played down the cancellation on Thursday, saying some agriculture ministers might still meet in Rome under a different forum. But diplomats say the US was unhappy with Paris and wanted to avoid an FAO meeting weeks before the US election.

UN and European officials have called on the US to review its policy on ethanol, which accounts for more than a third of US corn demand.

Corn prices hit an all-time high of $8.43¾ a bushel in mid-August after the worst drought in 50 years. Corn prices fell to $7.10 a bushel in late September, but have recovered to $7.62 a bushel on signs of lower inventories than expected.

Soyabean is trading at $15.64 a bushel, down from a record high of $17.94¾ in September. Wheat prices remain at two-year highs.