World Bank President Robert Zoellick called on the U.S. and the European Union to ease subsidies on some biofuels as one of a series of urgent steps to tackle a global food crisis.
"We need action in the U.S. and Europe to ease subsidies, mandates and tariffs on biofuels derived from corn and oilseeds when prices are high," Zoellick wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times Friday.
"Cutting tariffs on ethanol...would encourage the output of more efficient sugarcane biofuels that do not compete with food production," he added.
Zoellick's comments come as world leaders gear up for a U.N. food summit in Rome next week. The World Bank has announced a $1.2 billion fund to help poor countries cope with escalating prices.
Zoellick said the food crisis was a man-made disaster.
"The nexus between high energy and food prices is unlikely to be broken," he wrote, noting that surging energy costs are hiking agricultural production and transport costs and causing land to be shifted away from food production. "This is a 21st century food-for-oil crisis," Zoellick said.