By Raymond Colitt
BRASILIA (Reuters) - The governments of Latin America mustact to prevent high global food prices from increasingmalnutrition in the region, officials from a U.N. body said onTuesday.
"There's a risk that more people won't be able to affordbasic foods anymore, increasing malnutrition in the region,"said Fernando Soto, regional policy head for the U.N. Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO).
Low-income, food-importing countries -- most of them inCentral America -- were must vulnerable, Soto said at thesidelines of an FAO conference on Latin America and theCaribbean in Brasilia.
Across the globe, bread, milk and other foods have becomemore expensive, fuelling inflation in some countries.
Food riots in Haiti over high prices for rice, beans andother food staples led to the ouster of the government onSaturday.
Latin America produced 40 percent more food than it neededbut the problem was poor income distribution, said JoseGraziano, FAO representative for Latin America and theCaribbean.
"There shouldn't be a single hungry person in Latin Americaand yet there are 50 million under-nourished (people),"Graziano said.
Haiti was the only country in the region with a food crisisthat required immediate international aid, Graziano said.
Experts blamed price rises on strong demand by Asianemerging markets, adverse climate in some producer countries,and increased use of corn to produce ethanol in the UnitedStates.
Speculation by investors exacerbated the trend, saidGraziano, who sees prices remaining high for some time.
"A record (global) grain crop for the third consecutiveyear will be insufficient to replace depleted stocks," saidGraziano.
Among policy options delegates are discussing are levies onfood exports and tax breaks on imports.
"There needs to be more mitigation efforts," Soto said.
Some delegates cited as a model Brazilian President LuizInacio Lula da Silva's flagship social welfare program "ZeroHunger," which is helping reduce poverty in some regions.
Brazil is a global agricultural powerhouse and leadingexporter of several foodstuffs.
The FAO also is expected to recommend to its membercountries strengthening family agriculture as a way to boostfood supply and self-sufficiency.
In some countries small-scale farmers account for as muchas 40 percent of foodstuff production.
(Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Bill Trott)
