Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is creating a food crisis that could amount to a human catastrophe, according to the President of the World Bank, David Malpass.

Mr Malpass, the head of the institution which exists to alleviate global poverty, said that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition if the crisis continues.

“It’s a human catastrophe, meaning nutrition goes down. But then it also becomes a political challenge for governments who can’t do anything about it, they didn’t cause it and they see the prices going up,” he told the BBC.

Speaking at IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington, Mr Malpass said World Bank calculations showed there could be an increase in food prices of as much as 37 per cent.

“This is magnified for the poor, who will eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling. And so that means that it’s really an unfair kind of crisis. It hits the poorest the hardest. That was true also of COVID,” he said.

The price rises resulting from the conflict in the Ukraine are sweeping, affecting food of all kinds and including oils, grains, corn and green crops.

Mr Malpass said there was enough food in the world to feed everybody and global stockpiles were large by historical standards, but that there would have to be a sharing or sales process to get the food to where it is needed.

He also discouraged countries from subsidising production or capping prices.

Mr Malpass said the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.

He also warned of a knock on “crisis within a crisis” arising from the inability of developing countries to service their large pandemic debts, amid rising food and energy prices.

“This is a very real prospect. It’s happening for some countries, we don’t know how far it’ll go. As many as 60 per cent of the poorest countries right now are either in debt distress or at high risk of being in debt distress,” Mr Malpass said.

“We have to be worried about a debt crisis, the best thing to do is to start early to act early on finding ways to reduce the debt burden for countries that are on have unsustainable debt, the longer you put it off, the worse it is,” he said.

Anti-poverty groups and NGOs are said to be preparing campaigns to see the pandemic debt poorer nations have incurred to be written off.

About half of this debt is owned to Chinese banks but bit is unclear how they will respond to calls for leniency over the repayment of loans.

China had also secured its loans against ports and natural resources, such as is occurring in Sri Lanka currently.

Earlier this month, the United Nations said that the Ukraine war had led to a “giant leap” in food prices, as they hit a new record high in March.

Ukraine is a major producer of sunflower oil and cereals such as maize and wheat.

The UN Food Prices Index, which tracks the prices of the world’s most-traded food commodities such as cereal, vegetable oil, dairy, meat, and sugar, shows prices at their highest since records began 60 years ago.

The index shows they jumped almost 13 per cent in March, coming after a record high in February and when prices were already at 10-year highs before the war began.