Home | China | World | Business Some Asian Nations to Face Food Shortage As Regional Output Declines: FAO THU, FEB 21, 2002     Some Asian countries will face food shortage as the food production is declining in the region, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned here Thursday. The local-based FAO regional office for Asia and the Pacific said in a report that last year Asia's total production of cereal, including rice, wheat and coarse grains, decreased to 976.6 million tons from 989.3 million tons in the previous year. In 2001, except for coarse grains, the region experienced sharp output drops for the other two main cereals with a nearly 10-million-ton fall in wheat production and over 7-million-ton reduction in rice output, due to reduced harvests and bad weather. As a result, some countries are suffering a food shortage. In Central Asia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are the worst affected where drought and continuing economic decline threaten the food security of an estimated 3 million people. Despite gains in food output in the past year, the report said the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is still in urgent need of food aid as are large numbers of nomadic herders in Mongolia, who have lost their livestock due to the recent severe winter conditions. And so do victims of the devastating floods of the year 2000 in Cambodia and Vietnam, and tens of thousands of drought-affected people and refugees in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, it said. Editor:Hope CCTV.com Recommend to your friend email:    China Central Television,All Rights Reserved