Rising food costs threaten economic growth and are frustrating efforts to tackle global poverty and hunger, OECD Secretary-General Jose Angel Gurría said.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development joined French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Union Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos in calling for more information sharing in agricultural markets.

"Commodity markets need to function better and more transparently," Gurría said in a statement today. "Agriculture markets have always been volatile, but if governments act together then extreme price swings can be mitigated."

Sarkozy said yesterday regulation of commodity markets will be a priority of France's presidency of the Group of 20 nations this year, and inaction may cause food rioting in the world's poorest countries.

David Fuller's view Fundamental factors of supply and demand are behind most of the rises in commodity prices that we have seen over the last year. However this has encouraged hording and also a degree of investment and speculation in markets that were never intended to be an asset class.

I think many commodity investors/speculators will regard this increasing concern over high commodity prices as a sign to back off, and appropriately so, in my view.