"Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today ... the consequences will be terrible," International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Dominque Strauss-Kahn said.

"Hundreds of thousands of people will be starving...leading to disruption of the economic environment," Strauss-Kahn told a news conference at the close of the IMF spring meeting in Washington Saturday.

Development gains made in the past five or 10 years could be "totally destroyed," he said, warning that social unrest could even lead to war.

"As we know, learning from the past, those kind of questions sometimes end in war," he said. If the world wanted to avoid "these terrible consequences," then rising prices had to be tackled.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick also warned climbing food prices would set back efforts to reduce poverty by about seven years.

"While many are worried about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs," Zoellick said. "With little margin for survival, rising prices too often means fewer meals."

Solutions

Boiled in hot water, governments of major rice-producing Asian countries, like Thailand, Vietnam and India, are reducing or restricting rice exports, in a bid to meet their domestic needs. Philippine President Gloria Arroyo on Friday announced major investments to overhaul the country's agriculture sector, which is long been inefficient and riddled with graft.

FAO Director General Jacques Diouf has called all leaders of the 191 members to attend a summit in Rome, Italy slated from June 3 to 5, to discuss the current "emergencies", hoping to find feasible solutions.