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Nearly 1 billion people going hungry: U.N.

Almost a billion people go hungry each day after food price rises pushed 40 million more vulnerable people around the world into the ranks of the undernourished, reported the U.N. food agency.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), food prices have more than halved from their historic peaks a few months ago, but the cost of basic staples measured by an FAO index is still high: 28 per cent higher on average than it was two years ago. That has increased the number of people unable to afford to eat enough calories to lead a normal, active life. There are now estimated to be 963 million people, 14 per cent of the world’s population, going hungry in 2008, up 40 million from last year.

The FAO’s report, the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, found that the overwhelming majority of the hungry live in the developing world, 65 per cent of them in just seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. The worst affected are landless families, particularly household’s headed by women.

“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 FAO’s Assistant Director-General Hafez Ghanem. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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