A fake Twitter account opened immediately after the weekend election of China's Qu Dongyu to head the Food and Agriculture Organization has been shut down, the UN food agency said Monday. 

The account, which re-tweeted news stories about Qu's historic election on Sunday - when he became the first Chinese national to win the post - was online for several hours.

The sprawling Rome-based agency grouping 194 member states has redirected users from @DongyuQu to @FAO_DG, an account created in May 2018 with just 250 followers as of late Monday.

Qu, 55, a biologist by training with a doctorate from the Netherlands' Wageningen agricultural university, has been China's deputy agriculture minister since 2015.

His election comes as global warming and wars increasingly hamper the fight to eradicate world hunger.

Qu is to take up the four-year post on August 1.

AFP