New UN food agency chief foresees 2012 price volatility

The new head of the United Nations food agency said Tuesday he expects food prices to stay volatile in 2012 - and more people to go hungry.

José Graziano da Silva, Brazil's former food security minister, took over as director-general of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on January 1.

He told reporters Tuesday his top priority was to make good on the agency's mandate: eradicate world hunger.

Graziano acknowledged that the anticipated recession in much of Europe this year could affect his effort, with countries possibly reneging on their annual FAO dues.

But he said the assessments are relatively paltry and that the main effect the global economic crisis will have on FAO is more work.

"There will be many more people getting hungry, unemployed and we will need to find new ways to assist those governments," he said.

Graziano said he expected that food prices wouldn't rise much but that they also wouldn't fall. "But volatility will remain, that is clear," he said.

FAO, which is the UN's biggest specialised agency with a US$1-billion budget, has been battling the effects of wild swings in food prices that have particularly affected poor countries.

Prices too high

The FAO's food-price index hit an all-time high in February. It has since decreased slightly, but experts warn that food prices remain far too high for many poor communities.

The agency put the number of hungry people in 2010 at 925 million, the overwhelming majority living in developing countries.

Graziano is one of the architects of Brazil's much-lauded Zero Hunger programme, which over the past eight years has helped lift 19 million Brazilians out of poverty. He has said one of his main priorities was to decentralise FAO's work to the regional and sub-regional levels, since that's where hunger is fought.

"You solve food security problems at your village, at your town, at your neighbourhood - not at the global level," he said. "Nobody eats at the global level. You eat in the restaurant, in the cantina, at your house. That's where you need to provide those answers."