He spoke to reporters at U.N. offices in Austria, where he was meeting with the nation's top leaders for talks on how the United Nations and European Union can forge closer ties.
"This steeply rising price of food -- it has developed into a real global crisis," Ban said, adding that the World Food Program has made an urgent appeal for additional $755 million.
"The United Nations is very much concerned, as all other members of the international community," Ban said. "We must take immediate action in a concerted way all throughout the international community."
Ban urged leaders of the international community to sit down together on an "urgent basis" to discuss how to improve economic distribution systems and the production of agricultural products.
[Associated
Press; By VERONIKA OLEKSYN]
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