Global: UN warns of worldwide food crisis in 2013

World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the US or other food-exporting countries could trigger a hunger crisis next year. Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the United Nations.