Some foods may be cheaper this year, but the decrease won't be dramatic. That's according to the new director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, who says a slowdown in the world's economy will be behind the price decline.

Food prices may ease in 2012 due to a slowing global economy.

That's according to the new director general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Speaking for the first time since taking the helm, Jose Graziano Da Silva told a news conference in Rome that despite easing prices, the new year will see more people at risk of hunger.

UN FAO director general Jose Grazinao da Silva said: "We are expecting that prices will not be going up in the sense that they have been in the last two or three years. We are not also expecting that they will drop down as we faced in 2009. There will be some reductions but not so drastically like that in the short time. But, volatility will remain."

Graziano da Silva says the economic slowdown is unlikely to affect FAO projects.

But it may increase the number of countries requiring help.

Graziano da Silva said: "I really believe that FAO will only be affected that we will have much more work to do in a sense that there will be many more people getting hungry, unemployed, and we will need to find new ways to assist those governments."

The FAO is the largest U.N. agency with an annual budget of around one billion U.S. dollars.

But last year Britain threatened to pull out of the organisation unless it improved its performance.

And some donors such as the United States have initiated agricultural development projects of their own.

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