Call for 'world food crisis' action

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Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said the international community needed to respond like it did to 2004's giant Indian Ocean wave which killed 250,000 and left 10 million destitute.

She is in London for a food prices summit which will be joined by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said dealing with the issue was a "moral obligation" for everyone.

"This is the new face of hunger - the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are," Ms Sheeran said ahead of the meeting. "The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community, focused on emergency and longer-term solutions."

Experts believe high food prices have pushed around 100 million people deeper into poverty, requiring a response like the record £6 billion given to help the tsunami victims, she said.

"We need that same kind of action and generosity. What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent, destroying even more livelihoods and the nutrition losses will hurt children for a lifetime.

"WFP can, if needed and if asked, ramp up to help cool down a nutritional crisis, so that longer-term solutions can come on board," Ms Sheeran said, but she insisted that a co-ordinated response involving governments, other UN agencies, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and other humanitarian groups, including non-governmental organisations, was needed.

The WFP has already been forced to announce the suspension of school feeding for 450,000 Cambodian children and fears further cuts unless new funding is found.

Joining the call for co-ordinated international action, Mr Brown also indicated that the Government's enthusiasm for biofuels may be waning, amid concerns that the increasing use of farmland for energy crops is playing a big part in the global surge in food prices.

Writing ahead of the summit, Mr Brown said that the UK will need to be "more selective in our support" for biofuels, which have been pushed as a major weapon in the fight against global warming.