BRUSSELS. Nov 10: The world s poorest nations face a three billion dollars hike in their food import bills this year because of surging grain prices, the United Nations warned on Thursday, reports Reuter.

Their plight is worsened by cuts in Western food aid pledges and the withdrawal of grain export subsidies by big suppliers, a UN Food and Agriculture Organization, official said.

The FAO Is concerned that rising international cereal prices could place a large financial burden on many developing countries which rely on cereal imports to meet a large part of their food requirements,' Myles Mielke of the Rome-based FAO’s Commodities Division told a conference of grains executives.

Leading grain officials said traders say there Is no need for panic yet about food supplies, despite a run of bad weather which has driven global reserves to 20-year lows.

But another poor global crop next year after three annual shortfalls in a row could be catastrophic, many

We are one crop away from disaster said a senior executive in Geneva, the

world's grain trading capital.

Mielke said high grain prices are already a significant burden for 88 mostly African states which make up what the FAO calls Low-Income Food Deficit Countries (LiFDCs).

The LiFDCs could face an increase In their aggregate cereal import bill of around 3 billion dollar or 25 per cent in 1995-96 compared to the previous year

The FAO has been warning for months that stocks are below the level it considers necessary to guarantees food security for the world's 800 million undernourished.

Consumption for the following year, based on past trends.

But other leading monitors say the FAO's 20-year-old food security warning system Is out of date and exporters like the United States. Australia and Europe will quickly fill the gap

"I don't believe In the doom and gloom scenario. We are on a tight situation but there is capacity. Germain Denis head of the Interna tional Grains Council told the same conference.

"We have not heard of people actually being denied access to wheat this year We are not in a disaster scenario.' Denis said

Grain prices have risen by 30 or 40 per cent in many producing countries in the past year. But for importers who used to get generous export aid from the United States and European Union, the real cost of importing wheat has doubled.

Food aid budgets are also under pressure, notably in the United States which is embroiled in a row over public spending.

Mielke said the planet would need to produce 100 million tonnes or seven per cent more grain next year to meet average consumption — more if it wanted to rebuild stocks.

But he and others said more needed to be known about how far stocks could really fall before creating acute shortages.

The weather has aggravated what started as a deliberate effort by exporters to reduce past surpluses in the early 1990s.

But it may be an increasingly efficient farm industry can get by with lower working reserves to meet demand. Denis said

The FAO la working on Its methods of calculating stock danger levels and says it Is ready to update them if necessary