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Canada pledged another $50-million Wednesday to help the United Nations deliver food to the world's hungriest people amid soaring commodity prices, boosting total aid for this year to $230-million.

“The rising cost of food has created a crisis that is impacting the world's most vulnerable,” Beverley Oda, the minister in charge of the Canadian International Development Agency, said at a press conference. “This is a challenge we must all meet as a part of the international community.”

Ms. Oda said $45-million will go to the World Food Programme and $5-million will go to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, a church run organization based in Winnipeg that distributes food in the poorest parts of the world. .

Food prices have increased about 50 per cent since the end of 2006, a surge that threatens to shove tens of millions of people deeper into poverty, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Higher costs for foodstuffs and the fuel needed to distribute them to some of the remotest corners of the world are wreaking havoc with the budgets of humanitarian agencies.

The World Food Programme estimated in February that it would need emergency assistance of $500-million (U.S.) to meet its plan to feed 73 million people in 78 countries this year. The Rome-based organization was forced to boost its cash call to $755-million earlier this month as agricultural commodities continued to skyrocket.

“This very much demonstrates Canada's and CIDA's commitment to the World Food Programme,” Terri Toyota, the group's director of government donor relations, told reporter's at Wednesday's press conference.

Canada's pledge comes on the eve of the May 1 deadline the World Food Programme set for receiving pledges. Brenda Barton, a spokeswoman for the organization, said earlier today in Rome that the hunger agency had received promises for about 60 per cent of the $755-million.

For the first time, the UN won't have to buy from Canadian producers as part of Canada's food aid contribution, ending a practice that Ms. Oda said has sullied Canadian donations in the past.

The “tying” of food donations has been discredited by economists as inefficient and self-serving because it prevents humanitarian organizations from buying grain and other goods at the lowest cost, increases transportation costs and diverts money to farmers in richer countries when it could be used to buy goods from local producers.

Canada's decision to untie its food donations leaves the U.S. as the only major donor that continues to make aid contingent on buying from its farmers and food processors.

“Our food aid support must go further and must be used more efficiently,” Ms. Oda said. “Tied aid erodes Canada's global reputation because it suggests we are as concerned about helping ourselves as we are about helping others.”

Food prices are rising for a litany of reasons, including increased demand in countries such as China and India; record costs for oil, fertilizer and other agricultural inputs; droughts in major wheat exporting nations, including Australia; and speculation in commodity markets by hedge funds and other non-farm investors.

Another contributing factor is newfound demand for corn and oilseeds such as Canola to make ethanol and biodiesel – production that is subsidized by many governments, including that of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The IMF says biofuels accounted for almost half of the increase in consumption of major food crops in 2006-07, mostly because of corn-based ethanol production in the U.S.

Still, Ms. Oda omitted biofuels from list of factors she presented at the press conference as the main causes of the surge in food prices.

Parliament is debating government legislation that would force refiners to make gasoline with 5 per cent ethanol content.

Ms. Oda declined to say directly at the press conference if she thinks demand for biofuels is contributing to the rise in food prices.

When asked to explain the government's position, she said 95 per cent of Canada's agricultural land is used to feed people, and said that the Conservative government's biofuels strategy is “balanced and realistic,” noting that the Liberal Party favours a 10 per cent ethanol content in gasoline.