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This warning came from the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who added that people in developing countries, especially in Africa, will bear the brunt of the 'dire consequences from high food prices'.
His comments came as violence flared in Haiti, with mobs protesting against soaring food prices pulling a United Nations police officer from his car and shooting him execution-style.
Over the past few months, riots and demonstrations sparked by the cost of food have also broken out in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Mr Strauss-Khan was speaking on Saturday, ahead of yesterday's meeting of the IMF's sister institution, the World Bank, which was due to discuss a massive plan to reduce hunger announced earlier this month by bank president Robert Zoellick.
The IMF chief also warned richer countries that the problem of high food prices 'is not only a humanitarian question', as the developed world would also be affected by trade imbalances.
But he made it clear that it is the world's poor which will bear the brunt of the problem.
'Food prices, if they go on like they are doing today...the consequences will be terrible,' he said.
'Thousands, hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives.'
He also said that development gains made in the past five or 10 years could be 'totally destroyed', and that social unrest could even lead to war.
'As we know, learning from the past, those kinds of questions sometimes end in war,' he said.
According to a World Bank policy note released last week, increases in global wheat prices reached 181 per cent over the 36 months leading up to February, while overall global food prices increased by 83 per cent.
Meanwhile, the global price of rice has roughly doubled in the last year.
Singapore shoppers are feeling the pinch too, with overall food prices rising by 6.7 per cent year on year, according to the Consumer Price Index for February.
Mr Zoellick last week said that global food stocks had fallen to a level that was bordering on an emergency because of strong food demand, dietary changes and the use of biofuels as an alternative energy source. Some biofuels such as palm oil are also foodstuffs.
Meanwhile, World Bank policymakers were yesterday set to discuss Mr Zoellick's proposed 'new deal' for global food policy.
He is urging countries to provide the minimum US$500 million (S$670 million) immediately sought by the World Food Programme to address the food crisis.
The World Bank plans to nearly double its lending for agriculture in Africa, to US$800 million.
Mr Zoellick also wants sovereign wealth funds to increase their investments in Africa among other measures to soften the impact of a slowing world economy on the most vulnerable countries.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
