* 1.4 mln-2.7 mln people seen needing food aid in 2011
* Grain deficit at 340,000 T as people return to the south
MILAN, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The number of people in South Sudan needing food aid is set to rise after an independence vote, depending on the security of food supplies and inflow of people returning to the South, the United Nations said.
People from the oil-producing southern Sudan are voting in a referendum on whether they should declare independence amid a surge of violence in contested border regions. More than 60 percent of voters have already taken part in the referendum.
In the best-case scenario of a peaceful referendum process, the number of people receiving emergency food aid would rise to 1.4 million during the lean season from March until August 2011, the UN&${esc.hash}39;s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) said in a report on Wednesday.
About a million people in southern Sudan out of a projected total population of 9.16 million currently need food assistance, even though food supplies improved in 2010 thanks to rains, the report said.
If food insecurity increases in the post-referendum period, with trade shrinking against a backdrop of growing demand and high food prices, the number of people receiving emergency food assistance in South Sudan could reach 2.7 million at the start of the annual lean period when the previous harvest runs out.
South Sudan&${esc.hash}39;s cereal crop rose nearly 30 percent to 695,000 tonnes in 2010 thanks to rains, meaning that an overall cereal deficit of about 291,000 tonnes needs to be covered in 2011 by commercial imports and food assistance, the report said.
"With a forecast of about 400,000 people returning to vote the estimated deficit may increase up to 340,000 tonnes," FAO economist Mario Zappacosta said. "Returnees are expected to further increase the pressure on local food market supplies."
With uncertainties over the referendum, grain supplies from northern Sudan and to a lesser extent from Uganda and Kenya are expected to decline substantially, the report said.
Grain stocks have fallen in some border areas, driving prices higher, and would come under further pressure from large numbers of returnees, it said.
More than 120,000 people have returned since October, and up to 250,000 are expected to arrive by early February, it said.
(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova, editing by Jane Baird)
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