The United Nations is to set up a task force to tackle the global food crisis.

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, said the first task was to feed the millions who were now going hungry because of soaring food prices.

The task force, chaired by Mr Ban, will be made up of the heads of UN agencies and the World Bank.

The UN believes 100 million people are going short of food, and the World Food Programme says it will need an extra $755m (£380m) this year.

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'Unprecedented challenge'

"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 the Swiss capital Berne.

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

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

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Berne says in the long term the UN wants an end to what it calls trade distorting agricultural subsidies, and measures to address the damage to food production caused by climate change.

Full article here.