Italy on Thursday told the Rome food summit that a sort of 'global food bank' was needed to tackle the world food crisis.
''We will ask the European Union to help set up an international mechanism to create strategic resources to cope with emergencies,'' Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told world leaders.
He pointed out that, as well as providing immediate aid, this would reduce the sort of speculation on food prices that has worsened the current crisis.
Frattini said Italy supported United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's upcoming task force on the crisis, calling for ''global governance'' of food needs.
The Italian foreign minister criticised ''rigid'' attitudes to biofuel and ''dogmatic'' rejection of genetically modified (GM) seeds and crops.
Saying that ''further tests'' were needed on all kinds of GM products, Frattini said it was particularly ''senseless'' to deny the use of GM crops ''even in the production of biofuel''.
Frattini defended the UN food agencies sited in Rome - the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development - against critics who claim they didn't see the crisis coming and were slow to act.
''Italy supports this food hub,'' he said.
But he noted that the entire UN system needs '' greater efficiency and speed''.
Finally, Frattini made a solemn pledge that Italy will make the food crisis a priority when it takes over the chair of the Group of Eight at the start of next year.
The three-day Rome summit ends Thursday with leaders expected to hammer out an action plan for the crisis.
