LONDON, April 29 (Xinhua) -- With rice prices rising by more than 90 percent in the past year, the United Nations is setting up a task force to tackle the global food crisis.

    The task force, chaired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, will be composed of the heads of UN agencies and the World Bank, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday.

Director-General Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Jacques Diouf (L-R), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and World Bank President Robert Zoellick attend a news conference in Bern April 29, 2008. UN agencies and the World Bank will set up a task force on food to deal with the unprecedented rise in global food prices.  (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    The UN chief said it was essential to support farmers in poor countries.

    "In addition to increasing food prices, we see at the same time farmers in developing countries planting less, producing less, due to the escalating cost of fertilizer and energy," Ban said.

    "We must make every effort to support those farmers so that in the coming year we do not see even more severe food shortages," he said

    He said the world faces "widespread hunger, malnutrition and social unrest on an unprecedented scale" due to soaring food prices.

    Ban said the priority was to feed the hungry by filling a 755-million-U.S.-dollar funding gap for the UN World Food Program (WFP) this year.

    He urged donor countries to make more money available now.

    The WFP said 100 million people are currently going short of food.

UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-Moon adjusts his glasses before a news conference in Bern April 29, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    It said only 62 percent of the fund it needs to feed them has been pledged so far, and, of that, only 18 million dollars has actually been received.

    "We consider that the dramatic escalation in food prices worldwide has evolved into an unprecedented challenge of global proportions that has become a crisis for the world's most vulnerable, including the urban poor," the UN said in a statement after a meeting of agency heads in Berne, Switzerland.

    "The challenge is having multiple effects with its most serious impact unfolding as a crisis for the most vulnerable," the statement said.

    The prices of staple foods including rice, grain, oil and sugar are all at least 50 percent higher than they were this time last year.

    The UN will reportedly offer 200 million dollars to farmers in the worst affected countries to boost food production, in the medium term, and it is calling for a further 1.7 billion dollars to help countries with a food deficit to buy seeds.

UN to establish task force to tackle food crisis

    GENEVA, April 29 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations (UN) will establish a task force to tackle the global food crisis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced in the Swiss capital Bern Tuesday.

    Ban, who will head the task force himself, announced the decision after meeting with 27 key international agencies. The UN will take a series of emergent and long-term measures to deal with the crisis, he told reporters. Full story