One in six people in the world, or more than 1 billion is now hungry, a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and high food prices.

Josette Sheeran, head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), recalled food riots in several developing countries in the past two years and warned at the same news conference: “A hungry world is a dangerous world.”

“With the right support, smallholder farmers can double or triple their yields,” Sheeran said, adding: “Food has to be addressed as one of the pillar challenges that the world is facing.”

Almost all of the world’s undernourished live in developing countries. In Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 642 million people are suffering from chronic hunger; in Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; in the Near East and North Africa 42 million; and in developed countries 15 million in total.

The economic crisis also comes on the heel of the food and fuel crisis of 2006-08. While food prices in world markets declined over the past months, domestic prices in developing countries came down more slowly. They remained on average 24 percent higher in real terms by the end of 2008 compared to 2006. For poor consumers, who spend up to 60 percent of their incomes on staple foods, this means a strong reduction in their effective purchasing power. It should also be noted that while they declined, international food commodity prices are still 24 percent higher than in 2006 and 33 percent higher than in 2005.

The 2009 hunger report (The State of Food Insecurity in the World, SOFI) will be presented in October.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 7:05 am and is filed under Food & Nightlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.