The UN food agency said Wednesday it would need 42.6 million dollars (33.6 million euros) to carry out reforms called for by an independent review.

About half the funds will be spent next year, focussing on measures to improve `systems, programme, culture and organisational restructuring,` Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) budget director Manoj Juneja told AFP.

About 100 million more people will be living in hunger in a year if unfair global agriculture practices are not changed, the head of UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, warned Tuesday.

Only one-tenth of the some 22 billion euros in assistance for food and agriculture pledged for 2008 has reached the UN food agency, its chief Jacques Diouf said Thursday.

SANTIAGO, Oct 15, 2008 (AFP) - Latin America is losing its fight against hunger, as the rising price of staples drives millions to malnutrition, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Wednesday.

BOYANE, September 7, 2008 (AFP) - The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization called Sunday on Swaziland to increase its agricultural budget to help feed its poverty-stricken population.

Global warming and limited access to land and other resources threaten many indigenous peoples, the ...

ROME, July 31, 2008 (AFP) - The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Thursday it had launched an emergency operation to save 18,000 Peruvian alpacas at risk of dying and endangering local livelihoods.

ROME, July 29, 2008 (AFP) - People in Mediterranean countries are abandoning the region's widely praised healthy diet in favour of food that has too much fat, salt and sugar, the Food and Agricultural Organization warned Tuesday.

ROME, July 25, 2008 (AFP) - The UN food agency on Friday called for more research into the tropical root crop cassava as a way of helping poor countries threatened by soaring food and oil prices.

Cassava 'has enormous potential,' the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a statement that cited the conclusions of a meeting of experts in the Belgian city of Ghent.

HAVANA, July 21, 2008 (AFP) - The production of biofuels is depriving the world of around 100 million tons of cereals that could go to feed the hungry, the head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday on a visit to Cuba.

ROME, July 8, 2008 (AFP) - UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf on Tuesday urged Group of Eight leaders meeting in Japan to honour their pledges of aid to poor countries struggling to cope with soaring food prices.

Praising a G8 statement of 'strong concern' over oil and food prices, Diouf said the leaders should 'translate (the position) into concrete actions.'

GENEVA, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - An international standard for tomatoes has been adopted, ending about seven years of intense debates between countries on what qualifies as a proper tomato.

According to the new standard, tomatoes may come in one of four varieties: round, ribbed, oblong or elongated, or cherry tomatoes and cocktail tomatoes.

ROME, June 30, 2008 (AFP) - Last month's earthquake in Sichuan caused some six billion dollars (3.8 billion euros) in damage to agriculture in the southern Chinese province, the UN food agency said Monday.

'Over 30 million people in rural communities have been severely hit, losing most of their assets,' the Food and Agriculture Organisation said in a statement.

KABUL, June 9, 2008 (AFP) - Afghanistan's agriculture and livestock production will drop this year, further exacerbating food shortages in the destitute nation, the UN food agency said Monday.

Agriculture accounts for 53 percent of gross domestic product and employs 66 percent of the workforce, Food and Agriculture Organisation representative Teskete Teskie told reporters.

WARSAW, June 6, 2008 (AFP) - The world's farmers were bypassed at this week's Rome UN food summit, reflecting a crucial gap in addressing the crisis at its most basic level, the leader of a global farmers' group said Friday.

ROME, June 6, 2008 (AFP) - This week's UN summit in Rome produced 'a lot of words' but not many solutions to the global food security crisis, the Vatican mouthpiece Osservatore Romano said Friday.

LONDON, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - A UN summit in Rome which pledged to halve global hunger by 2015 was an 'important first step' but not sufficient to tackle the global food crisis, British charity Oxfam said Thursday.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - A UN summit vowed Thursday to halve global hunger by 2015 and take 'urgent' action over the global food crisis, but only after going into overtime at a fractious summit in Rome.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - Donors pledged some 6.5 billion dollars (4.1 billion euros) to fight hunger and poverty at the UN food summit, UN food agency chief Jacques Diouf announced on Thursday.

'Our conference was not a donor conference, but we were pleasantly surprised to receive extremely generous pledges,' Diouf said.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders vowed Thursday to halve global hunger by 2015 and take 'urgent' action over the global food crisis, but only after going into overtime at a fractious summit in Rome.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - Food must not be used as a political or economic weapon, world leaders agreed Thursday, in a final declaration approved by delegates at the end of a food crisis summit in Rome.

The final statement was agreed after the three-day summit had gone into overtime after fractious argument, notably due to reservations by Latin American countries.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders vowed Thursday to cut the number of undernourished people in the world by 2015, in a declaration approved by delegates at the end of a food crisis summit.

The final statement was agreed after the three-day summit had gone into overtime after fractious argument, notably due to reservations by Latin American countries.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders struggled Thursday to agree an action plan to tackle the global food crisis, as a fractious summit on soaring prices went down to the wire.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini expressed disappointment at the final declaration of the UN food security summit to be released Thursday, ANSA news agency reported.

The final document is 'disappointing relative to expectations,' he said, saying the text was 'unfortunately very watered down with respect to the initial ambitions.'

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - The final declaration of the UN food security summit is 'disappointing,' Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Thursday ahead of its release, the ANSA news agency reported.

The final document is 'disappointing relative to expectations,' he said, saying the text was 'unfortunately very watered down with respect to the initial ambitions.'

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - A Cuban demand for the UN food security summit to enshrine a 'right to food' implicitly condemning the US trade embargo against Havana may doom the meeting's final declaration, a diplomat said Thursday.

The 193 member states of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the summit are divided over the Cuban demand, a Latin American source told AFP.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - Small farmers' groups on Thursday reacted with 'disgust' to the conclusions of the UN food security summit, saying they would further the same failed policies that led to the world food price crisis.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders held last-ditch talks Thursday to agree an action plan to tackle the global food crisis, after three days of wrangling that has exposed strains over how to prevent hunger and poverty.

ROME, June 5, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders will seek Thursday to agree an action plan to tackle the global food crisis, after three days of wrangling which has exposed strains over how to prevent hunger and poverty.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders battled Wednesday to agree on how to tackle the global food crisis, making multi-billion dollar aid pledges but struggling to agree notably on biofuels, sources said.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - World leaders are pledging to use 'all means' to ease the current global food crisis, according to a draft final declaration obtained by AFP Wednesday at a UN summit in Rome.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - The European Union's much-criticized farm subsidy system can be part of the solution to the global food crisis and not the problem, the EU's top farm official said Wednesday.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - The United Nations apologised Wednesday to an Iranian journalist who was barred from a food summit in Rome, allegedly due to opposition from the Islamic state whose president was among participants here.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - Africa took centre stage at the UN food summit Wednesday as former UN chief Kofi Annan spearheaded an initiative to help small-scale farmers in the world's poorest continent.

Annan signed a partnership agreement with the United Nations' three food agencies at the summit in Rome, which is grappling with how to tackle soaring food prices worldwide.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - Pledges of almost three billion dollars of emergency aid were made at a food price crisis summit on Wednesday but UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned up to 20 billion dollars a year would be needed to avoid disaster.

'We simply cannot afford to fail,' the UN secretary general said at the food security summit. 'Hundreds of millions of people expect no less.'

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan signed a partnership agreement on Wednesday with the three UN food agencies to help small-scale farmers in Africa.

WARSAW, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - The world food crisis is a wake up call for developing nations to turn subsistence farmers into agricultural entrepreneurs able to feed growing populations, according to a global farmers' organisation Wednesday.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned Wednesday that failure was not an option in addressing the global food price crisis, and said an extra 15-20 billion dollars per year would be needed to help avoid disaster.

ROME, June 4, 2008 (AFP) - The Islamic Development B