FACTBOX: High food prices - the FAO/OECD view

(Reuters) - Food commodity prices will remain high in the coming decade even if current records will not last, the United Nations food agency and the OECD said on Thursday.

The report by the two public agencies, published ahead of a world food summit in Rome, says more genetically modified crops may be needed and suggests a rethink of biofuel programs that are hurting grain supply for food and animal feed.

Below are some of the findings and policy recommendations in the report, OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2008-2017, an annual review of the trends and challenges for the decade ahead.

PRICE FORECASTS (average nominal commodity prices over 2008-2017 vs 1998-2007): - up 20 percent for beef and pork - up 30 percent for sugar - up 30 percent for rice - up 40-60 percent for wheat, maize, skim milk powder - up 60 percent for butter and oilseeds - up 80 percent or more for vegetable oils

CAUSES - poor harvests, notably in countries such as Australia - biofuel production, the largest source of new demand for

grains that would otherwise go into food and animal feed - demand and changing diets in fast-developing nations/regions - financial investor flows in food commodity futures markets - high oil prices, which raise production and freight costs

CONSEQUENCES - millions more face hunger, undernourishment in poor countries - inflation rises, proportionately more so in poor countries - impact on retail food prices varies from country to country or place to place depending on trade rules, taxes, transport and development level, but impact generally bigger in poor places

In Bangladesh, 65 percent of a household's money goes on food, in Haiti and Kenya 50 percent, Senegal 40 and China 27. In rich countries, for Japan it is 19 percent, Spain 22, France 16, Germany and the United States 10 percent, and in Britain 12.

WHAT CAN BE DONE? - short-term, emergency humanitarian aid needed to fight hunger - open trade policy, avoid import/export restrictions - in poorer countries, issue of broad economic policy balance - more use of genetically modified crops to boost output - rethink first-generation biofuel production policy

(compiled by Brian Love)