PARIS – The head of the Food and Agriculture organization says the ranks of the world’s hungry are continuing to swell, despite a recent drop in food prices.
Jacques Diouf says it’s expected there will soon be a record one billion hungry people worldwide.
Diouf says the financial crisis is expected to push an additional 104 million people into hunger in 2009.
Diouf and other experts said Wednesday that though food prices have dropped, they remain higher than earlier this decade.
They also said the prices of basic staple foods in developing countries have registered almost no drop.
The FAO is an agency of the United Nations.
