Margaret Beckett has dismissed claims that the Johannesburg summit failed to deliver hope for the developing world.

Brushing aside claims that the Earth summit was a talking shop, Margaret Beckett told Labour's conference that the gathering of world leaders had given renewed momentum to the "sustainable development" agenda.

"I fully understand the disappointment of those who wanted more from Johannesburg but the summit was not the end of a process but the beginning," she said.

"Let there be no doubt. The [UN development] programme represents the greatest challenge the human race has ever set itself. If delivered it would mean a revolution in the lives of the poorest people on the planet and the start of a revolution in our approach to the planet itself."

"We dare not fail."

Beckett branded the South African conference "the down to earth summit" which put earlier initiatives into practice.

"It was never the intention to draw up a new master plan in Johannesburg," she told Blackpool delegates.

"There's nothing wrong with the master plan that we already have. But at Johannesburg we sought to create a mosaic of implementation."

But echoing comments made Patricia Hewitt on Monday, Beckett looked ahead to the forthcoming Doha round of world trade talks.

Contrasting Western sums involved in agricultural subsidies to aid funding - $350 billion compared to $50 billion, she highlighted figures showing that opening up markets to poor farmers could be worth three times the current support for the third world.

"That's why this winter's talks on Common Agricultural Policy are so important. The CAP takes half the EU budget. Yet no one believes this money is well spent," she said.

"We want to switch resources from irrelevant or damaging subsidy so that we can support environmental improvement or rural prosperity more directly and more effectively than is possible today."