NEW DELHI: Close to the midway mark of the 2015 deadline set by the World Food Summit in 1996 for reducing hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has described the progress made so far as "disappointing."

Also climate change threatens to increase the number of the world's hungry by reducing the area of land available for farming in developing countries.

The FAO made this observation in a report presented to the Committee on World Food Security that reviewed the progress on reduction of hunger in the world this week.

India stands to lose 125 million tonnes, equivalent to 18 per cent, of its rain-fed cereal production from climate change. However, China's rain-fed cereal production potential of 360 million tonnes is expected to increase by 15 per cent, the FAO said in its report.

"In about 40 poor, developing countries, with a combined population of two billion, including 450 million undernourished people, production losses due to climate change may drastically increase the number of undernourished people, severely hindering progress in combating poverty and food insecurity," the FAO said.

The severest impact was likely to be in sub-Saharan African countries, which are the least able to adapt to climate change or to compensate for it through increased food imports.

Sixty-five developing countries, home to more than half the developing world's total population in 1995, risk losing about 280 million tonnes of potential cereal production as a result of climate change. This loss would have a value of $56 billion, equivalent to 16 per cent of the agricultural gross domestic product of these countries in 1995.

Four-pronged approach

At the end of the three-day meeting in Rome on Thursday, the FAO has proposed, a new four-pronged approach for developing countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing hunger by 2015 in the world.

The proposed strategy would focus action in four specific areas including advocacy and support to the MDG initiative; better targeting of FAO's programmes; pursuit of strategic alliances and partnerships and strategic support to country-level cooperation.

The organisation will campaign for wider recognition of the critical role of the rural and agricultural sectors in meeting the goals. It will focus on policy and capacity-building support to countries incorporating the MDGs in their national development strategies.

The World Food Summit goal was set in 1996 and reinforced by the Millennium Development Summit (MDG) in 2000. "We are almost certain to miss by a wide margin the target for cutting the number of undernourished people in half (by 2015), if the current trends persist," the FAO notes.

Disproportionate share

The FAO estimates that 852 million people worldwide were undernourished in 2000 - 2002: 815 million in developing countries, 28 million in the countries in transition and nine million in the industrialised countries. South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have disproportionate share of the world's hungry. The number of undernourished people in developing countries decreased by only nine million during the decade following the World Food Summit baseline period of 1990 - 1992. However, during the second half of the decade, the number of chronically hungry in developing countries increased at the rate of almost four million a year, wiping out two thirds of the reduction of 27 million achieved during the previous five years.

These estimates refer to chronic under-nourishment. However, causes such as conflicts, economic failures and natural disasters including the recent tsunami estimate the "transitory hunger" to affect around five to 10 per cent of the world population.

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