A U.N.-backed report is predicting a decade of higher food prices just as France is pushing the issue of commodity trading reform to the top of the Group of 20 agenda.

A report issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization asserted "higher food prices and volatility in commodity markets are here to stay," due to rising demand and "slow growing" supplies.

The report came only days after French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is the current chairman of the G20 industrialized nations, called for more regulation in the commodities futures markets and was backed by in his call by EU officials.

The OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2011-20 forecast little relief in terms of world food prices in the coming decade, which, it said, "raises concerns for economic stability and food security in some developing countries, with poor consumers most at risk of malnutrition."

The report said that while a good harvest in coming months "should push commodity prices down from the extreme levels seen earlier this year," it also contends that real prices for cereals over the coming decade could average as much as 20 percent higher.

Those for meats, it added, could top out as much as 30 percent higher compared to 2001-10 -- again, lower than the peak price levels experienced in 2007-08 as well as this year but still subject to extreme swings.

"While higher prices are generally good news for farmers, the impact on the poor in developing countries who spend a high proportion of their income on food can be devastating," OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said in a statement.

In response, he said, the groups are "calling on governments to improve information and transparency of both physical and financial markets, encourage investments that increase productivity in developing countries, remove production and trade-distorting policies and assist the vulnerable to better manage risk and uncertainty."

Per-capita food consumption, the report said, will expand most rapidly in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, where incomes are rising and population gains are slowing, while meat, dairy products, vegetable oils and sugar should experience the highest demand increases.

Meanwhile, Sarkozy, speaking last week at a European Commission conference on commodities and raw materials in Brussels, made a hard-hitting speech in which he pointed the finger at commodity market speculation as one of drivers behind food price hikes and demanded tough new regulations on them.

Sarkozy, who is pushing for G20 members to agree by November to new regulations and an information-sharing system for commodity markets, noted that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange annually trades agricultural derivatives amounting to 46 times the United States' annual production of wheat and 24 times its annual production of corn.

"I'm not saying dishonesty is at work here but who can accept, when we have not got enough to feed the planet and planetary growth, financiers trading 46 times the physical volume of the U.S. wheat market?" he asked.

"France," Sarkozy said, "wants the G20 countries to adopt common principles of regulation and oversight, applicable to all commodity derivatives markets."

The French president said commodity market "financialization" needed to be controlled by demanding cash deposits on all derivative deals. He rejected concerns that unilateral EU action would push traders to less regulated markets by pointing out that the United States has already proposed caps on individual trades and stricter regulation of the commodities market.

Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the internal market, told reporters at the same conference he is set to take such action, saying he was mulling imposing limits on the size of positions taken in commodities contracts.

"We must strengthen oversight by those who regulate positions in derivatives on commodities," he said, European Voice reported. "In our proposals we will include the ability to impose position limits if needed."

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