‘Food prices may ease in 2012, although risk of hunger remains’

FOOD prices may ease in 2012 due to a slowing global economy, though no drastic drop from high levels is expected, the new director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said yesterday.

Jose Graziano da Silva, the Brazilian who replaced Senegal’s Jacques Diouf at the helm of the FAO at the start of 2012, said volatility in food markets was likely to continue and that more people would be at risk of hunger due to economic instability.

“Prices will not be going up as in the sense of the last two to three years but will also not drop down. There may be some reductions but not drastic,” Graziano da Silva told a news conference in Rome.