Innsbruck - Up to 30 billion dollars (19 billion euros) are needed annually to guarantee that the world population will be sufficiently fed up to 2050, the head of the UN food organization said at a conference on Wednesday.

European countries, development banks and the World Bank had pledged 7 billion euros at a summit meeting on food security in Rome in early June, Austrian news agency APA reported Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director General Jacques Diouf as saying.

Food prices would remain high, Diouf predicted ahead of a FAO regional conference for Europe. Sustained demand for foodstuffs, problems created by climate change and low stocks contributed to this trend, he said.

At the FAO conference taking place on June 26 and 27, member states will discuss how to support emerging nations in Europe and central Asia whose recent agricultural growth is threatened by climate change and rising staple food prices. (dpa)