UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to announce details of new measures to tackle the global food crisis.
The United Nations is to set up a task force to tackle the global food crisis.
The announcement is expected after a meeting of UN aid agency chiefs in the Swiss capital Berne.
The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, said the rise in food prices around the world had turned into a challenge of global proportions.
The UN estimates up to 100 million of the world's poorest people now need food aid due to 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 cost of staple foods like rice, grain, oil and sugar are all at least 50% higher than they were this time last year.
It will explore both emergency and long-term measures to tackle the crisis caused by the recent sharp rise in the price of staple foods such as wheat.
In the short term, the World Food Programme needs an extra $755m (£380m), as its original budget for 2008 will not be enough to cover rising prices and increased demand.
Unprecedented challenge
Long-term challenges
"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.
But raising cash may be the easy part. Food riots have focused world attention on rising prices, and some countries, including the UK, have already promised more aid.
"The challenge is having multiple effects with its most serious impact unfolding as a crisis for the most vulnerable," it went on.
Rising food prices are worrying governments across the world
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 to cope with the rising number of people it needs to feed.
The biggest challenge is the long term - how to promote sustainable agriculture, tackle climate change, and at the same time ensure enough food is produced.
Within the UN itself opinions are divided.
The UN expert on the right to food has called for the production of biofuels to be suspended, claiming they push food prices up.
The head of the UN's environment programme, meanwhile, believes biofuels are key to providing alternative energy for the future.
Unrest triggered
World trade talks have been stalled for years because of divisions between rich and poor countries over agricultural subsidies.
Agreement might bring some stability to world food prices, but any deal is likely to be still a long way off.
The increasing costs of basic foods has triggered unrest in several countries.
The Haitian prime minister was forced from office earlier this month after the soaring cost of rice and beans triggered violent disturbances in the capital Port-au-Prince.
A host of countries across Asia have suspended rice exports amid fears that insufficient domestic supplies could lead to acute instability.
The UN's two-day meeting in Berne is being attended by the heads of 20 agencies as well as World Bank president Robert Zoellick and World Trade Organization boss Pascal Lamy.
