ADDIS ABABA More than six million Ethiopians, around one in 10 of the population, will need food aid this year despite an improving outlook for crops, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

"6.2 million people are chronically short of food," George Mburathi, the chief representative in Ethiopia of FAO, told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday.

The Rome-based FAO, which monitors food supply conditions around the world, estimates that Ethiopia's food aid needs in wheat and coarse grains in 2001 will total 640,000 tons.

The United Nations has recently launched an appeal for $203 million to assist Ethiopians affected by drought and war.

Ethiopia, which has a population of around 65 million people, is one of the poorest countries in the world with an average annual income of about $100 per head, and lacks basic infrastructure such as roads in many rural areas.

Diseases such as malaria are commonplace, and HIV/AIDS which infects some five percent of the population, many of them in the workforce, is ravaging agricultural production, FAO officials said.

Many people were displaced in the recent war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which ended after a peace agreement was signed in December 2000. Tension still runs high between Ethiopia and its northern neighbor Eritrea.

Many Ethiopians in eastern, southeastern and northern regions are desperate for food after a recurrence of droughts in recent years which have devastated the livelihoods of livestock farmers, known as pastoralists.