All the five countries are major grain producers and consumers so "we should jointly encourage the international community" to intensify efforts to ensure food security, Hu said.

At the end of the meeting, the leaders of the five countries called for a shared responsibility to ensure world food security, and international cooperation to boost energy development and efficiency.

"We call upon the international community to devise better ways and means of producing and distributing food," a joint declaration said.

"Multi-billion (dollar) agricultural trade-distorting support in developed countries have hampered the development of food production in developing countries, critically reducing their possibilities of reaction to the present crisis," the declaration said.

The leaders stressed the "imperativeness of creating an enabling international environment for agro-produce related trade, establishing a just and reasonable international trade regime for agricultural products and concluding the Doha Round (of WTO talks) with meaningful commitments to agricultural subsidies reductions".

Prices of agricultural commodities have risen sharply over the past two years. The increase has been particularly sharp in the first six months of this year, with prices of rice, corn and wheat reaching record highs.

This has sparked riots in many countries and worsened the condition of 850 million people already in the grip of hunger.

The leaders said they "encourage collaborative action for better seeds and farm outputs that are sustainable and environmentally sound ... so as to create a conductive international environment for food security".