World hunger is expected to decline this year as food prices fall due to good harvests and increased stockpiles, the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization said.
The food security situation in the Sahel and Horn of Africa regions is still critical, the Rome-based FAO said today in a statement on its website.
The FAO’s index of global food prices had its biggest drop in two years in May as the cost of dairy products slumped on increased supply. Grain and sugar prices also declined. About 925 million people suffered from chronic hunger in 2010, according to the FAO’s most recent estimate.
“We should expect a reduction of the number of hungry people in the world in 2012,” FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva was cited as saying.
Graziano da Silva today asked the FAO’s governing council to approve reforms at the UN agency. Proposed measures include transferring many services and staff from the headquarters in Rome to country offices to be closer to issues of underdevelopment and hunger, the FAO wrote.
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