ITALY/FILE: The number of people in the world suffering chronic hunger has declined for the first time in 15 years but the United Nations' food agency said it is not time to relax efforts

Record ID: 575249

  • Title: ITALY/FILE: The number of people in the world suffering chronic hunger has declined for the first time in 15 years but the United Nations' food agency said it is not time to relax efforts
  • Date: 15th September 2010
  • Summary: ROME, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 14, 2010) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) FAO DIRECTOR GENERAL JACQUES DIOUF SAYING: "The long term solution to food insecurity is investing in agriculture in developing countries so that they can produce the food needed for a world population expected to exceed 9 billion in 2050."
  • Embargoed: 30th September 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA49IA0GQSN2JF2R5Z3YWZFYVOD
  • Story Text: The number of people in the world suffering chronic hunger has declined for the first time in 15 years, thanks to improving economic conditions and lower food prices, the United Nations' food agency said on Tuesday (September 14).
    About 925 million people are undernourished in 2010, down almost 10 percent from a record 1.02 billion last year, which was the highest number in four decades, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report.
    "FAO's latest estimates indicate that 925 million people will be hungry and malnourished in 2010. While this figure marks an improvement compared to last year's spike in world hunger of 1 billion persons there is no cause for complacency" FAO director general, Jacques Diouf, told journalists presenting the report.
    "Close to 1 billion hungry is and remains unacceptable," Diouf added.
    FAO said that most of the world's hungry people live in developing countries, where they account for 16 percent of the population in 2010.
    While that marks an improvement from a level of 18 percent in 2009, FAO warned it was still lagging a U.N. target to halve the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries from 20 percent in 1990-92 to 10 percent in 2015.
    Diouf said the fact that nearly 1 billion people remain hungry despite improvements indicates the seriousness of structural problems that must be addressed.
    "The long term solution to food insecurity is investing in agriculture in developing countries so that they can produce the food needed for a world population expected to exceed 9 billion in 2050." he said.
    The number of hungry people in the world had been rising for more than a decade, reaching a record spike in 2009 triggered by the economic crisis and high domestic food prices in several developing countries.
    The improvement in food security in 2010 was mainly a result of better access to food due to improving economic conditions, as well as lower food prices after two years of bumper cereal harvests, the FAO said.
    The head of the other Rome-based U.N. food agency, the World Food Programme (WFP), said that the decrease in the number of hungry people should not convince donors that the emergency is past.
    "Just because the numbers have been reversed does not mean that the effects of the shock of the food crisis are not still in place, this was part of what the research discovered." WFP's executive director, Josette Sheeran, said.
    "In fact the resiliency of people is weaker than before, many have lost their livestock, many had to sell all their assets and the nutritional status, particularly children, is still very precarious" she added.
    World leaders are expected to declare at a United Nations summit next week that the set of goals aimed at drastically reducing poverty and hunger worldwide by 2015 are achievable, according to a draft document.
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