Millions of poor people across Europe should get access to more food handouts from next year after the EU's farm chief proposed higher spending on Wednesday to help cushion the fall-out from sharply higher food prices.

The food aid scheme was set up after Europe's exceptionally cold winter of 1986 when surplus stocks of food commodities were given to national charities to distribute to needy people.

Now, after a series of policy changes that were designed to rid the EU of its notorious grain mountains and wine lakes, those intervention stocks -- cereals, beef, butter, milk powder, olive oil, rice and sugar -- have mostly all gone.

With less availability of publicly-stored food and higher retail prices thanks to surging commodity markets, Europe's poor were having a tough time feeding themselves, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told a news conference.

"The recent hike in food prices has hit every one of us, in particular the most underprivileged members of our society," she said. "The fact is that 43 million EU citizens cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day."

"We cannot resolve all food poverty in the EU. But we can make a significant contribution," Fischer Boel said.

Under the Commission's plan, authored by Fischer Boel's agriculture department, spending on the EU food aid scheme would rise to 500 million euros in 2009 from the 310 million euros earmarked for 2008.

Italy takes the lion's share of that amount at present, with about 70 million euros a year, followed by Spain and France.

Aid is provided to a wide range of people living in poverty, including families, the elderly, homeless, disabled, migrant workers and asylum seekers in 19 of the EU's 27 countries.

Austria, Britain, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Slovakia, Sweden and the Netherlands do not participate in the current system.

If EU farm ministers agree, food distribution plans will be set up for three-year periods, in cooperation with charities and local social services, and with EU countries choosing the food they want, based on nutritional criteria.

Priority will be given to intervention stocks where these are available but no longer be limited to those for which the intervention system applies -- the scheme will also cover fruit, vegetables and cooking oil, for example, for the first time.

Otherwise, food purchases will be made by public tender.

For the three-year plan starting in 2010, EU states would get 75 percent of the costs paid by Brussels but have to pay the remaining 25 percent themselves. More economically disadvantaged areas would get 85 percent of their bill paid by EU money.

From 2013, EU countries would have to match, euro for euro, the cash they get from Brussels. Poorer regions would pay 25 percent of their costs and EU money would cover 75 percent.