UN Food report: Over 1 billion people worldwide are hungry
Are we really living in a developed world? It is a big question and needs re-confirmation. If seen in a broad spectrum, the answer will be a big No. Of course, the world is developing, but on the other hand we are falling short on basic necessities.
AN EYE-OPENING report of the United Nations has brought forward the dismal state of the world affairs, where millions of people have to surivive without food and are facing hunger, despite so much technological advances.
According to the recent report of the UN (United Nations) food agency, around 1 billion people across the world are hungry. Most importantly, the report says the number will rapidly increase if governments of the respective countries do not spend more on agriculture. As per the UN food agency report at least 30 countries now require immediate aid that includes 20 countries in Africa only.
Despite a goal set by world leaders nine years ago to cut the number of hungry people to half by 2015 the trend continues. Otive Igbuzor, the head of international campaigns for Action Aid International said, “It’s actually a world emergency that calls for action from both developing and developed countries. We know a child dies every six seconds of malnutrition”. Igbuzor said the trend can be seen in impoverished countries across Africa. In Kenya, herders have seen scores of their animals die and crops have withered because of drought. Today, 3.8 million people in Kenya need food aid, up from 2.5 million earlier in the year.
Although desperate measures have been taken in past, but one in five children in Somalia is acutely malnourished. “Families are cutting out the school, cutting out the clothes. A lot of them are going for cheaper cereals,” said Grainne Moloney, an expert of the Somalia Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit. Further Moloney added, in Somalia, ravaged by violence and anarchy for almost two decades, the monthly expenditure for food and other basic needs for a family of six has risen 85 percent in the past two years. On an average, such a family spent $171 in September this year, compared with $92 for the same amount of food and other needs in March 2007.
While talking with a Television News channel, Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said, spiraling food prices have added to hardships, especially in the world’s most desperate countries where the poor could barely afford a single daily meal to begin with. The inflated prices, which caused riots across the globe last year, have stabilized but remain comparatively high, especially in the developing world.
After worldwide gains in the fight against hunger in the 1980s and early 1990s, the number of undernourished people started climbing in 1995, reaching 1.02 billion this year amid escalating food prices and the global financial meltdown, the Rome-based agency said in its State of Food Insecurity report for 2009.
The long-term trend is due largely to reduced aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture since the mid 1980s. Diouf said, in 1980, 17 percent of aid contributed by donor countries went to agriculture. That share was down to 3.8 percent in 2006 and only slightly improved in the last three years. “In the fight against hunger the focus should be on increasing food production. It's common sense ... that agriculture would be given the priority, but the opposite has happened,” said Diouf.
Diouf said world leaders are starting to understand that investment in agriculture must be increased. He cited the goal set by the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy, in July to raise $20 billion to help farmers in poor countries produce more, a shift from previous emphasis on delivering food aid.
The world’s most populous region, Asia and the Pacific, has the largest number of hungry people (642 million), followed by Sub-Saharan Africa with 265 million. More investments will be needed to fulfill pledges like the UN Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve the number of those living in hunger and poverty by 2015, said the FAO report.
Further, the FAO says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050. To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion in annual agricultural aid, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems and modern machinery as well as build roads and train farmers.
The food report is really a matter of concern for all. While we are moving ahead in various sectors, at the same time we are neglecting basic necessities. The global leaders should come forward and ensure the meal for hunger people by taking some emergency steps. Like other parts of the world, the problem of hunger is also thriving at a massive scale. The Centre as well as state government should seriously look into the matter on time, unless the situation may be worst.
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