1 billion hungry in world

1 billion hungry in world, says UN agency


AN UN agency has put the number of hungry people at 1 billion.

Food and Agriculture Organization officially put the number of hungry people at 963 million.

The Rome-based agency attributed rising food prices as the reason for the phenomenon that put an additional 40 million people into hunger this year alone.

“This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said at the presentation of the State of Food Insecurity report. “Not enough has been done to reduce hunger and not enough is being done to prevent more people (from) becoming hungry.”

According to the agency, even though prices of major cereals fell by over 50 percent from their peaks earlier this year, they remain high compared with previous years, especially in local markets.

Small farmers could not increase production and take advantage of the higher prices because they lack access to water, seeds, fertilizers and markets, the agency added.

“For millions of people in developing countries, eating the minimum amount of food every day to live an active and healthy life is a distant dream,” said Hafez Ghanem, the organization's assistant director-general.

Nearly two-thirds of the world's hungry live in Asia, while in sub-Saharan Africa one person in three is chronically hungry, the report said.

Those who suffer most from the rises in prices - and are forced to eat less and lower quality food - are households that have no land to rely on and are headed by females, the agency said. source