The call by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a top-level task force to address the issue of the spiraling cost of food worldwide is precisely the kind of co-ordinated global action that is necessary at this precarious moment in history, and could not have come at a better time. The secretary general's other suggestions, that the World Food Programme needs to be fully funded, that key producer nations should not ban exports, and that bio-fuels need to be reconsidered in light of the current crisis, are also all well taken. Most urgent is the extra $755 million needed by the WFP due to the sharp jump in global food prices to stave off hunger in dozens of impoverished countries around the world. The WFP feeds the poorest of the poor, who face starvation otherwise, and the fact that it has in hand only $18 million of the extra $755 million necessary is a disgrace that Ban did well to call attention to. In addition, his statement, which echoes, among others, those of Oxfam and the UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food, on the disastrous consequences of bio-fuel, especially bio-fuel subsidies, on the food supply, are salutary, and heartening. A much-needed rethink on the balance between bio-fuels and food is underway. The UN chief's call on food-exporting nations was also a welcome one. Current bans or limitations on exports have led only to hoarding and speculation, not lower domestic prices in those countries, with the ultimate result that food has not been reaching those most in need of it. This is indeed a global problem, and it is good that UN and similar organisations are both aware of the magnitude of the crisis, as well as the need to look at tough solutions and, in Ban's words, the "urgent necessity to address structural and policy issues that have contributed to the crisis." For, make no mistake about it, it is a crisis and the crisis is global, and, as such, the solution can only be global. There is much that individual countries must do and are doing for themselves, but the fact that it is understood that this a global crisis, requiring global solutions, is a good thing.