PARIS, May 7 (Reuters) - France will be on the look out to make sure any deal at the World Trade Organisation is in the interests of poor countries hit by soaring food prices, the French farm minister said on Wednesday.

"We know that an unbalanced deal that would not be reciprocal and that would limit talks to agriculture without linking it to other issues would be a bad agreement," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier told parliament.

"It would be bad of course for French and European farmers but most of all disastrous for the poorest countries' economies," he added, referring to soaring food prices.

Barnier said the WTO talks in Geneva were conducted "in great haste" and he called for top international bodies including the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation to join forces to find solutions to the current food crisis.

"The IMF, the FAO, the WTO and the World Bank should work together to take up the food challenge," he said.

Staple food prices have risen more than 40 percent in the last year, causing shortages, riots and deaths in many developing countries, and prompting the United Nations to warn of malnutrition and social unrest.

The WTO's chief Pascal Lamy said on Wednesday the institutions could not offer any immediate easing of soaring food prices but a deal in the Doha round launched in November 2001 to open up world trade could bring long-term solutions.

A new trade deal would help soften the impact of high prices by lowering barriers to trade in agricultural products, including trade-distorting subsidies in rich countries, he said.

France is the single biggest beneficiary of the EU's farm subsidies, worth more than 40 billion euros ($61.96 billion) a year in total.

AlertNet news is provided by