UN agriculture chief calls for more investment

MBABANE: The top U.N. agriculture official says food prices are soaring worldwide because governments have invested too little in farming.

U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization Director Jacques Diouf says the soaring food prices have caused deaths and led to protests that threaten governments.

Diouf says most poor people in Africa, Asia and Latin America are in rural areas and are unable to grow their own food because of the prices for items such as fertilizer and seeds.

Diouf was speaking Sunday to reporters in Swaziland, one of the countries in Africa that will benefit from a US$1.7 billion FAO initiative to help small farmers get fertilizer and other farm materials.