World Bank President, Jew Robert Zoellick Says Food Prices In 'Danger Zone'

World Bank president Robert Zoellick has warned rising food prices have reached dangerous heights that pose the biggest threat to the world's poor.

"We are in a danger zone because prices have already gone up; stocks for many commodities are relatively low," Mr Zoellick said at the opening of the World Bank's annual spring meetings in Washington.

Mr Zoellick called high and volatile food prices "the biggest threat to the poor around the world".

According to the bank's food price index released yesterday, global food prices have soared 36 per cent from a year ago. It partly blames soaring oil prices and poor weather for the surge in the food price index to close to its 2008 peak.

A lead economist with the World Bank, Hassan Zaman has told Radio National Breakfast the rise means that since June, an extra 44 million people are living on less than $1.25 per day.