Agriculture markets working, not yet emergency: U.S.

ROME (Reuters) - Global agricultural markets are working properly and G20 countries have agreed that an emergency meeting of the Rapid Response Forum under the agriculture body AMIS is not necessary at the moment, the US Mission to the United Nations agencies in Rome said on Thursday.

"The U.S. concurs in the judgment of the G20 Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) representatives that in light of the information available to us today, agricultural commodity markets are functioning and a meeting of the Rapid Response Forum is not necessary at this time," the U.S. mission said in a statement.

The United States currently is chair of the G20 body AMIS.

A ministerial meeting that goes beyond the G20 is still scheduled to be held on Oct 16 to discuss food prices, Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation told Reuters.

Earlier on Thursday, the U.N.'s food agency said its monthly Food Price Index, which measures price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 216 points in September, up 3 points from the reading in August.

(Reporting by Steve Scherer and Catherine Hornby)