ROME - Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil has been elected director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN agency tasked with reducing world hunger at a time of record high food prices.

Graziano, currently FAO's regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, won on the second ballot with 92 of the 180 votes of FAO member states Sunday.

He beat out Miguel Angel Moratinos of Spain and four other candidates to replace Jacques Diouf of Senegal, whose 18-year tenure prompted a change in the agency's rules to set term limits.

The Rome-based FAO is the largest UN agency with an annual budget of about $1 billion. It has faced longstanding calls from top donors like the United States for reform and budget cuts.