Cereal prices, particularly for wheat and maize, have surged to their highest levels in a decade, driven by poor harvests in key producing countries, fast-growing demand for bio-fuel production and supply constraints on the rice economy, according to the United Nations latest Food Outlook report released today.

The United Nations today marked World Food Day, seeking answers and solutions to a searing question: why are there 850 million chronically malnourished people in a world with enough resources to feed all, 400 million of them hungry children whose lives will be forever blighted by lack of nutrition in their first months?

The world’s first humanitarian video game – a United Nations-produced virtual world of planes launching food airdrops over crisis zones and emergency trucks struggling up treacherous roads under rebel threat with emergency supplies to combat hunger – is extending its potential audience by tens of millions of people.

Forty countries worldwide are facing food emergencies and require external assistance because of floods, drought and conflict, but the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan remains the most pressing humanitarian problem, the United Nations food agency said in a report released today, warning that things may get worse in the strife-torn region.