Rising food and oil prices threaten many African economies and inflation at 7 percent in late March, a more than three-year high, is a headache for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, which faces national elections next year.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned on Wednesday that high food prices and shortages would continue in the short term, making some poorer countries vulnerable to food riots.

While the move to turn food into biofuel has benefitted a handful of grain-surplus African countries such as Uganda, speakers at the summit blamed the tactic for skyrocketing prices and shortages.

Besides, lack of infrastructure and connectivity have meant food stocks from surplus countries cannot reach the shortage-prone regions, they said.

"It is a challenge in the sense that there is this problem of shortage of food in a number of countries and there is a problem of high prices," Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, Tanzanian President and head of the African Union, said.

"These days the farms have been put to biofuel production creating a shortage of food and therefore creating a problem of high prices."

New Delhi hopes the first ever India-Africa summit will help it chip away at China's decade-long head start in the race for the continent's rich resources and food supplies.

In return, it offered to ease access for exports from poorest of the African countries, billions of dollars in lines of credit, investments and its skills in low-cost industry and services.

Prime Minister Singh said the Indian and African economies must acquire the momentum needed to meet all their food needs through domestic production.

"There's no single answer to the question of food security," Singh told a joint news conference at the end of the summit, marking agriculture as an area with huge potential for cooperation between India and Africa.

Trade apart, India came away from the two-day summit with African leaders pledging support for India's bid for a seat on any expanded United Nations Security Council to match its growing economic clout in Asia and beyond.