RedwoodAge.com

It would take about $30 billion a year to end world hunger, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, which estimates that 925 million people don't have enough to eat.

The group said the number of those hungry rose by 75 million this year because of rising food prices, some of that resulting from the conversion of corn to fuel for cars.

The organization reported Wednesday that global food prices rose 12 percent in 2006, 24 percent in 2007 and 50 percent in just the first six months of 2008.

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the agency, predicted the number of hungry would top 1 billion by year's end.

The number of people suffering from malnutrition, before the worst effects of global price rises, "rose just in 2007 by 75 million," Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Rome-based agency, told an Italian parliament committee, according to ANSA news agency.

He called the figure modest compared to what many countries spend on arms and agriculture.

The US, which spends about $30 billion a month in Iraq, on Friday announced it would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out financial companies that recklessly invested in derivatives based on home mortgages.

The UN agency is trying to reduce world hunger by half by 2015.