Oxfam Australia is urging Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to use his influence with the leaders at this week's G8 meeting in Japan to ensure the world food crisis is top of the agenda.
The Group of Eight nations - the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Italy - is holding its annual summit in Tokyo from Monday.
Oxfam Australia's acting executive director James Ensor said Mr Rudd, who had said he would encourage the G8 to "apply the blowtorch" to OPEC about fuel prices, must also apply a blowtorch to the wider international community about food prices.
"World leaders must commit more resources to combating increased food prices, which is having a drastic impact on the world's poor," Mr Ensor said in a statement.
"This follows last week's revelations from a leaked World Bank report that biofuel production has forced global food prices up by 75 per cent."
Mr Ensor said Oxfam was calling on G8 governments to end their new love affair with biofuels before more people go hungry.
"Despite his observer status, the prime minister, as a regional leader, has an important opportunity to also champion the needs of the people of the Asia Pacific region on rising food prices, not just to represent Australians on fuel prices," he said.
