"The global community must collectively deliberate on immediate steps to reverse the unconscionable increases in the price of food, which threatens to negate the benefits to the poor nations from aid, trade and debt relief," he said.
Douglas Alexander, Britain's minister for international development, said his country is willing to work with others to bring prices down. "Now is the time for urgent action to tackle the crisis, which is affecting millions of the poorest people across the globe," he said.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that governments should resist the temptation to fight soaring food costs with price controls, which he said would likely backfire.
The World Bank has warned that food prices will remain elevated this year and next, and likely stay above 2004 levels through 2015.
BIOFUELS SQUEEZE
One of the main factors behind the surge in prices is the increased use of crops for biofuels as an alternative energy source. Almost all of the rise in global corn production from 2004 to 2007 went to biofuels in the United States.
Other factors that have contributed to the rise are the growth in demand in Asia and droughts in food-producing nations like Australia.
Climate change also received heightened attention at Sunday's meeting - one of the few times that finance and development ministers have been drawn into the discussions.
The ministers called on the World Bank to mobilize financing to help the poor deal with the effects of global warming.
In Bali in December, countries agreed on a road map for two years of talks aimed at securing a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change when it expires in 2012.
Zoellick on Sunday helped convene a meeting he called a "Bali Breakfast" that brought developing countries together to discuss ways to tackle climate change. He said he hoped it would become a regular event.
"The drive to address climate change won't work if it's seen as a rich man's club," Zoellick said.
