February 6 - With world population rising, era of low food prices over

The era of falling food prices has come to an end with the world population set to add another 2 billion people, according to Cargill Inc., the U.S. farm commodities trader.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has said global food output must rise 70 per cent by 2050 to feed a world population expected to grow to 9 billion from 7 billion now and as increasingly wealthy consumers in developing economies eat more meat. Food prices tracked by the FAO climbed to the highest ever a year ago on surging grain prices.

Cargill, based in Minnesota, trades all kinds of farm commodities, including cocoa, soybeans, corn, sugar, meat, wheat and ethanol. Conway is based in Cobham, England. Wheat has doubled since the end of 2005, raw sugar is twice the price in December 2008 and orange juice climbed to a record last month.

Group of 20 farm ministers agreed to a plan last year in June to set limits on export bans and create a crop database to tackle what French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the “plague” of rising food prices.

As many as 925 million people already faced hunger worldwide in 2010, based on the FAO’s estimates. In response to the 2008 food price crisis, countries from India and Egypt to Vietnam and Indonesia banned exports of rice, a staple for half the world. Russia in 2010 banned cereal exports after the country’s worst drought in at least half a century destroyed crops and cut production, sparking a surge in grain prices across the world. Ukraine also restricted exports.

“The world’s farmers, some of the smartest businessmen that there are, can produce enough food to feed the next two billion people,” Conway said. “We are very confident about that. However, they need help.”