20100914
africanews

ROME (Reuters) - The number of people in the world suffering chronic malnutrition fell for the first time in 15 years in 2010, but volatile food prices could hamper efforts to fight hunger, the United Nations' food agency said on Tuesday.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation said it did not expect to see a repeat of the 2007/2008 food crisis soon, as stocks and production prospects for cereals were still viewed as adequate but it expressed concern about price rises.

"Larger price volatility, combined with the recent increase in food prices, if it persists, will create additional obstacles to reduce hunger," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told a news conference.

The FAO's view that a new emergency was unlikely contrasted with the World Health Organisation, which on Tuesday warned flooding in Pakistan and Russia's drought threatened to spark a food crisis that could endanger the world's poorest people.

About 925 million people are undernourished in 2010, down from a record 1.02 billion last year, which was the highest number in four decades, the FAO said in its report.

It said most of the world's hungry people lived in developing countries, where they account for 16 percent of the population in 2010.

While that marks an improvement from a level of 18 percent in 2009, the FAO warned it was lagging a U.N. target to halve the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries from 20 percent in 1990-92 to 10 percent in 2015.

"The fact that nearly a billion people remain hungry even after the recent food and financial crises have largely passed indicates a deeper structural problem," the FAO said.