A billion are starving, says UN
Report says largest number of people now going hungry for 40 years
A UN report says that more than a billion people across the world are going hungry for the first time in 40 years.
The number of hungry people across the world has passed one billion for the first time in 40 years, according to the UN
The world's economic travails have combined with a large increase in the price of staple foods in poor countries to force the number of undernourished people to the highest level since 1970 -- the total has risen by at least 100 million in the past year alone.
The UN's survey of the "state of food insecurity" found the gains of the 1980s and early 1990s -- when the number of hungry people fell every year -- were steadily being reversed. Instead, the total is rising in both relative and absolute terms for the first time since 2004.
Five years ago, about 15pc of people in the developing world were undernourished. Today the figure approaches 20pc.
This is not primarily because of poor harvests or bad weather, although drought has brought immense suffering to Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia this year.
Instead, the main factor is the increase in global food prices since 2007, together with cuts in aid from wealthy countries and the loss of jobs and remittances caused by the world recession. While retail food prices have fallen in rich countries over the past year, they have stayed high in poor nations. "As usual, it is the poorest countries -- and the poorest people -- that are suffering the most," said Jacques Diouf, the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and Josette Sheeran, the head of the World Food Programme (WFP), in their joint introduction to the annual study.
Staple foods in poor countries cost more in real terms than before the recession.
Of the 56 nations surveyed by the WFP, basic food prices in 47 were about 19pc higher than in 2007.
Caroline Hurford, a spokesman for the WFP, said: "The cost of food in developing countries has not come down." She added the only solutionwas to increase agricultural output and cause prices to fall by boosting the supply of food. (©Daily Telegraph, London)
- David Blair in London
Irish Independent
