UNITED NATIONS, Sept 4: The United Nations said on Tuesday that urgent action was needed to ensure that the rising world food prices did not turn into a catastrophe.

It also cautioned that panic-buying and export restrictions were not the solution.

Last week the World Bank said world food prices jumped 10 per cent in July, as US corn and soybean production suffered in the grip of a record-breaking drought. Similar conditions in Russia, Ukraine and Kaza-khstan have taken a toll on wheat production.

The current situation in world food markets, characterised by sharp increases in maize, wheat and soybean prices, has raised fears of a repeat of the 2007-2008 world food crisis. But swift, coordinated international action can stop that from happening,” top UN officials said in a joint press statement.

The UN officials stressed that to prevent a food crisis it was necessary to address both immediate and long-term issues. In the short-term, they stated that there must be a coordinated response by food producers to deal with spikes in food prices, and an improvement in the transparency of global markets.

Countries must avoid panic-buying and refrain from imposing export restrictions which, while temporarily helping some consumers at home, are generally inefficient and make life difficult for everyone else,” the officials stated.

“Above all, however, we must understand that high food prices are a symptom, and not the disease. So while the international community must take early action to prevent excessive price increases, it should also move to act on the root causes behind such surges.”