New York - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called on world leaders to attend a food summit in Rome next month armed "with fresh ideas" to combat the global food crisis.

"If not properly handled, this crisis could cascade into multiple crises affecting trade, development and even social and political security around the world," Ban told reporters at UN headquarters in New York on returning from trip to Africa and Europe.

He said the UN task force on the global food crisis will be moving at full speed and would hold its first meeting next Monday. Ban announced the new international Task Force - composed of heads of key UN agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - last week.

The task force has been charged with studying the underlying causes of the crisis and propose long-term solutions at the June food summit in Rome.

Ban told reporters that the international community has made promising steps in recent days to address emergency needs, but added that the longer-term challenge was "to boost agricultural development, particularly in Africa and other regions most affected."

"The livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people are threatened," he warned. (dpa)