Nestle chairman sees worse food crisis than 2008

The chairman of Nestle , the world's biggest food group, warned that the world faced a worse hunger crisis than in 2008 given the amount of land devoted to producing biofuels instead of food.

"The World Food Organization has now determined what I have been preaching for years: no food for producing fuels, too much land is lost for nutrition," Peter Brabeck told Austrian paper Wiener Zeitung in an interview printed on Tuesday.

"But there is a strong lobby and high subsidies behind this so I expect an even stronger food and hunger crisis than in 2008," he added.

Brabeck was referring to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which this month stepped up pressure on the United States to change its biofuel policies because of the danger of a world food crisis.

Global alarm over the potential for a food crisis of the kind seen in 2007/08 has escalated as drought in the U.S. midwest has sent grain prices to record highs, fuelling a 6 percent surge in the FAO's July food price index.