By Lesley Wroughton

ADDIS ABABA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - World Bank President Robert Zoellick told African leaders on Friday he wanted to step up spending on agriculture, including technology and roads, to spare the continent sharply increased food import prices.

Africa's agriculture has long been neglected by international agencies like the World Bank, which have focused on pressing health and education problems. But matters have come full circle, with a spike in food prices increasing hunger. Zoellick told African leaders from Mali, Mozambique, Madagascar and Senegal at the African Union summit in Ethiopia he wanted to expand the Bank's efforts to help countries produce their own food, instead of relying on imports.

"We spent half a billion dollars on agriculture in the region last year but would like to increase that if the governments in the region want to do so," he said.

"We need to focus on property rights, seeds, then fertilizers, irrigation and marketing systems."

In the past two years, global prices of maize have risen 75 percent, while wheat and rice prices have nearly doubled, pressuring African nations that import most of their food and citizens who spend half their disposable income on it.

Zoellick said increased attention was needed in the areas of agricultural technology and expanding road networks and trade to help lower production costs and get food to market.

"We think there is a real opportunity here ... if you get an extra dollar of income growth in agriculture it has three times the effect of overcoming poverty than other areas because you still have 75 percent of the poor in rural areas," he said.

Zoellick said Africa's "Green Revolution" would need to be different from that of Asia, which focused heavily on certain seed varieties, and would require a greater private-sector role.

Africa's agricultural sector is plagued by outdated farming practices and infrastructure, water shortages, lack of irrigation and storage capacity.

The African leaders complained that the Bank's strategies were often impractical and doing business with it was hindered by bureaucracy.

OIL PRICE SQUEEZE

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza said his country's wheat import costs had jumped to $250 a tonne in 2007 from $142 a tonne the previous year and would likely reach $500.

"While we are trying to increase production, we're suffering from hunger and malnutrition and increased oil prices," Guebuza said. "It affects the whole value chain."

He called for greater investments in roads, renewable energy sources like wind power, and financing by banks for farmers.

"We think that the World Bank should play a more active role in the Green Revolution, meaning that it should help us create production and productivity and the capacity of farmers to earn more and be more active," Guebuza said.

He urged Zoellick, the former U.S. trade representative, to encourage rich countries to reduce agricultural subsidies and trade barriers.

Mali President Amadou Toumani Toure said water shortages were the biggest constraints to agricultural production in their countries.

"The problem is water, not that we don't have water but we don't have it where we need it," Toure said, adding that the 70-80 days of rain a year in Mali required fast-germinating seeds.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Ralph Boulton)