Falling productivity and high oil prices are likely to keep global food prices at elevated levels for another decade, a top World Bank official said in Mumbai on Thursday.

"Oil prices are not going to come down. The era of cheap food is over and prices are likely to remain high for at least the next ten years," World Bank South Asia Region Vice-President Praful Patel said.

He said the current situation has "caught the whole world by surprise" and the crisis was due to a combination of factors, he said.

The effective measure in the South Asian region will be a pro-poor and pro-agriculture approach with "coordinated and cohesive" policies and implementation, he said.

A global financial mechanism to fund programmes for enhancing agriculture productivity was required and the World Bank is setting up a special trust fund of $800 million to support such initiatives.

"The World Bank will contribute USD 50 million from its net income, while the remaining will be raised through donors like various UN agencies," Patel said.

The global bank has already increased its South Asian commitment for agriculture to $1 billion from $ 300 million last year.

A substantial part of these funds will be diverted towards R&D to improve the farm productivity and develope high

quality seeds.

"This is in addition to what the World Bank will be spending on building roads in rural areas," he said.