As the United Nations marks World Food Day, a report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that a record one billion people around the world are malnourished - and the number is rising [AFP]
Published On 16 Oct 200916 Oct 2009
As well as immediate threats to health, aid groups say rising food prices in many parts of the world means families are forced to cut other essentials, such as schooling and basic medical care, pushing communities deeper into poverty [EPA]
Advertisement
As part of the UN's Millennium Development Goals nine years ago, international leaders pledged to cut world hunger by half by 2015 [EPA]
But despite that pledge, aid agencies say a child dies of malnutrition every six seconds [AFP]
The FAO says soaring food prices and a lack of investment in agriculture means the number of hungry people in the world is continuing to rise [GALLO/GETTY]
According to UN figures, the Asia-Pacific region has the largest number of hungry people with 642 million people in need of aid [GALLO/GETTY]
Sub-Saharan Africa, hit by years of drought and other troubles, has at least 265 million hungry [EPA]
Advertisement
In Somalia, where one in five children is malnourished, two decades of violence and anarchy have caused dire food shortages and soaring prices. In the past two years alone, prices of the most basic foods have almost doubled [EPA]
While hunger is rising in general, aid agencies say some countries have had success in tackling the problem and reversing previous shortages [EPA]
In Malawi, which until recently suffered acute food shortages, financial and other incentives to farmers have helped produce agricultural surpluses and reduce hunger [Reuters]
A recent report by aid group ActionAid International on global efforts to tackle hunger ranked Brazil among the most successful, cutting child malnutrition rates by 73 per cent in six years [GALLO/GETTY]
The report attributed Brazil's success to strong social welfare policies and programme of investment in small-holder farmers that had boosted production and reduced prices [EPA]
According to the FAO, global food output will need to increase by 70 per cent by 2050 to feed the projected increase in world population, with investment urgently needed in irrigation and machinery [Reuters]
To achieve that, it says, poor countries will need $44bn in annual agricultural assistance – compared to just $7.9bn spent currently. The sign at this recent call to action in Paris reads: Hunger is not a fate, it is a scandal. [Reuters]
