CHIANGMAI, Thailand - The international community should attach great importance to food security and take active measures to deal with the problem of rising food prices, a Chinese food expert said on Tuesday.

It is necessary to further expand the agriculture investment, promote the food production, prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters, Nie Fengying, a senior researcher of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences made the remarks at the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) high-level conference on food security.

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"Secondly, it is essential to curb the speculation of international capital, strengthen the regulation on the international capital flows and financial derivatives market," she said." Thirdly, international community, particularly the developed countries should take effective measures to increase food aid and help the least developed countries out of the food crisis."

On Monday, Apichart Jongskul, head of the secretariat of the ASEAN Plus Three (China, South Korea and Japan) Emergency Rice Reserve or APTERR told Xinhua that East Asian countries could further enhance cooperation on food security through the mechanism.

APTERR is a mutual assistance system to provide necessary quantity of rice effectively to rice-needy people in East Asia.

Nie also said that each country should attach greater importance on the agriculture, strengthen the dialogue and cooperation, actively and effectively coordinate the policies and actions.

"For instance, we should pay more attention to scientifically guide the bio-energy industry development, strengthen the international cooperation on climate change, and further improve the international trade environment of agricultural products," she said.