Photo: Jason Sangster for Mercy Corps

The UN head of food and agriculture, Jacques Diouf, is urging oil-producing countries to reinvest oil revenues into local agricultural programs out of concern for rising food prices. The oil-rich countries termed by the UN the Near East (which includes most North African and Middle Eastern countries) has seen steady declines in agriculture productivity during the last two decades, and external food aid has dropped significantly as well. However, according to the FAO, the number of undernourished people in the region has grown from 33 million in the early 1990s to over 100 million by 2004.

With plans to feed as many as 73 million people this year, the UN World Food Program is alarmed by recent price increases, according to the New York Times editorial, "Priced Out of the Market". Increasing food prices in themselves are not extraordinary, but the fact that grain and wheat producers, among others, are shifting their effort away from food to alternative energy production will dangerously complicate the situation - higher prices combined with a global food shortage will prove deadly.

The FAO's Hunger Map shows that most of the countries with the most dire need for food aid are not high producers themselves. While Near Eastern countries are still able to find enough food resources to feed their people right now, the Financial Times quotes Mr. Diouf's warning that “it is a difficult balance for governments to respond to the need of their populations by importing food at very high prices, and also to ensure that the poorest of their populations get access to food at reasonable prices.”