World Bank President Robert Zoellick has a guest op-ed in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer calling for a “New Deal” to confront the growing hunger crisis.

“The disturbing images should spur the global community to action: riots in Haiti, protests in Egypt and violence in many other countries, sparked by the rising price of food…

To help those who will be hit the hardest, the World Bank Group is calling for a New Deal for Global Food Policy. This New Deal should focus not only on hunger and malnutrition, access to food and its supply, but also the interconnections with energy, yields, climate change, investment, the marginalization of women and others, and economic resiliency and growth…

To be most successful, we will need to integrate and mobilize a diverse range of partners including the Gates Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Program, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development; other Multilateral Development Banks; agricultural research institutes; developing countries with great agricultural experience; and the private sector.

A New Deal for Global Food Policy will contribute to inclusive and sustainable development. People in poor, middle-income and developed countries will benefit together. Income gains from agriculture have three times the power in overcoming poverty than increases in other sectors, and 75 percent of the world’s poor are rural, with most involved in farming. Working together, we can ease the burden of high food prices on the world’s most vulnerable.”

Read the full op-ed here.

-Virginia Simmons