ROME — With food and fuel prices soaring, the United Nations agency charged with feeding the world’s hungry has launched an “extraordinary emergency appeal” to cover costs and avoid having to cut aid, a senior official said Monday.

The World Food Program called on donor nations for urgent help in closing a funding gap of more than $500 million by May 1. If money doesn’t arrive by then, Executive Director Josette Sheeran said in a letter to donors, the WFP may be forced to cut food rations “for those who rely on the world to stand by them during times of abject need.”

The poorest face hunger as people around the world are being “priced out of the food market,” Sheeran told reporters Monday in a conference call.

The Rome-based WFP feeds at least 73 million people in nearly 80 nations with an annual operating budget of $2.9 billion.

“We’ve never quite had a situation where aggressive rises in food prices keep pricing operations out of our reach,” Sheeran said.