MANILA - SAGGING farm productivity and increasing demand have brought the world to a crossroads in terms of food security, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) said on Sunday.

Failure to act now could lead to a long-term crisis that will make this year's price spikes seem a mere blip on the radar, said IRRI, the world's leading rice research and training centre which is based outside Manila.

'Declining agricultural productivity and continued growing demand have brought the world food situation to a crossroads,' it said in a statement on its website.

IRRI called on governments to reinvest in agriculture including research into improved technologies, infrastructure development, as well as training and education of agricultural scientists.

'Growth in agricultural productivity is the only way to ensure that people have access to enough affordable food,' said Ms Elizabeth Woods, the chairwoman of IRRI's board of trustees.

'Achieving this is a long-term effort. A year or two of extra funding for agricultural research is not enough,' she said.

Ms Woods said the annual rice yield growth rate has dropped to less than one per cent in recent years, compared with 2.3 per cent between 1967-90.

Based on projected income and population growth, annual productivity growth of almost 1.5 per cent will be needed at least until 2020.

IRRI's warning coincided with the release of a report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization which said higher food prices are partly to blame for the number of hungry people growing by 75 million to about 925 million worldwide.

The Asian Development Bank recently said that for Asian countries to prevent future food price surges, the agricultural sector needs wide-scale structural reform.

The ADB has increased the poverty level from US$1 (S$1.42) a day to US$1.35 a day, meaning that millions more people are now considered impoverished.

The price of rice, one of the world's staple grains, spiked at more than US$1,000 dollars a tonne in May before settling at around US$700 dollars a tonne - still double the price of a year ago, IRRI said. -- AFP