The global economic crisis has affected agriculture in the countries of Central and East Europe, according to Jacques Diouf, general director of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

“Countries of the region face big economic difficulties, including reduction of export markets, flow of money transfer and private funding”, said Diouf on Thursday during the opening of 27th regional conference of FAO.

Hunger has increased during the last three years due to reduction of investments in agriculture and abrupt price reduction of food.
“It deepens due to financial-economic crisis which negatively affected in all the parts of the planet”, he said.

Starting from 1998 about 50 million people in the region of Central and East Europe could manage to successfully overcome poverty which was conditioned by total growth of income.

“In Central Asia the number of people suffering from hunger was reduced from 9.3 million in 2000-2002 to 5.8 million in 2004-2006 and agriculture played a key role in poverty reduction of the countries of Europe and Central Asia”, said Diouf.

In 2009 the number of starving people increased by 105 million in the world compared with the previous year.