Members from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have agreed to cooperate to stable food prices and ensure orderly rice trade in the region.

Indonesia trade minister Marie Pangestu said ASEAN countries had made it a political commitment. He also admitted this is a big challenge.

"For a lot of developing countries, this is also going to be very challenging because we need to ensure that the poor, the poverty rates don't go up in our countries because of the rising food prices. So here, that's the big challenge. But in the medium term, the answer has to be in increasing productivity."

Food riots have erupted in some countries such as Haiti, Egypt and Somalia in response to the rising prices.

Ambassadors from rice exporting countries of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar were scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss a proposal by Thailand to form a food cartel in control of the price. Thailand is the world's largest rice exporter.

But the idea has encountered opposition.

Francis Pangilinan is a Philippine senator. The country is the world's biggest rice importer.

"I think this is a bad idea, I think this is anti poor, I think that the most vulnerable of sectors, meaning the poor and the under privileged will suffer from this effort, because what will happen here is that you will have rice producing nations dictating how the prices of rice will go and its already sky rocketing."

The price of rice from Thailand topped 1,000 US dollars per ton this month, nearly triple the January level.

The Asian Development Bank has warned that the prices of rice and other farm products could keep rising this year.