January 3/New York/Reuters -- Food prices may ease in 2012 due to a slowing global economy, though no drastic drop from high levels is expected, the new director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

Jose Graziano da Silva, the Brazilian who replaced Senegal's Jacques Diouf at the helm of the FAO at the start of 2012, said volatility in food markets was likely to continue and that more people would be a risk of hunger due to economic instability.