New FAO chief says food prices may ease in 2012

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 U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Tuesday.

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 a 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.

Global food prices measured by the FAO hit a peak in February but have been falling since June as crops have improved and concerns about global economic turmoil have reined in demand growth.

High food prices have helped fuel inflation and contributed to civil unrest and the Arab Spring earlier this year.

Graziano da Silva said he did not expect the economic slowdown in Europe to impact funding for FAO projects, because the amount countries donated was such a small proportion of gross domestic product that they were unlikely to cut it.

But he said the slowdown was likely to increase the number of people at risk of hunger in the world.

We will have more work to do, with more people hungry, more people unemployed, and we will need new ways to assist them, he said, as he began a term of three and a half years.

The 62-year-old agronomist, who is the first Latin American at the helm of the U.N. agency, said he would focus efforts on poor countries that are most in need of outside help and that his priority would be Africa, particularly northern Africa.

He plans a visit to the Horn of Africa early this year.

The FAO is the largest U.N. agency with an annual budget of some $1 billion and 3,600 workers.

Graziano da Silva, the former head of the FAO in Latin America and the Caribbean and a former minister for food security in Brazil, will need to bridge a divide between donor countries and developing countries to foster consensus and avoid paralysis in the organisation.

He plans to cut bureaucracy and reduce perks for top management and he also wants to decentralize operations and give more authority to local outposts, he said.

The FAO adopted reforms after an assessment funded by its members in 2007, which said it risked terminal decline due to its weak governance and lack of transparency and accountability.

But last year Britain threatened to pull out of the organisation unless it improved its performance, and some donors such as the United States have initiated agricultural development projects of their own.

(Reporting By Catherine Hornby, editing by Jane Baird)