FAO: Almost 1 Billion People are Starving, Food Prices Still High

High food prices have pushed an additional 40 million people into hunger this year, increasing the total number of starving people to 963 millions worldwide or 14 percent of the world’s population, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The UN agency reports that although prices of major cereals fell by more than half from their peaks earlier this year, they are still 28 percent higher on average than two years ago. The world hunger situation may further deteriorate as the financial crisis hits the real economies of more and more countries.

The vast majority of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries, with 65 percent in seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. Nearly two-thirds of the world's hungry live in Asia and one in three people - or 236 million - are chronically hungry in sub-Saharan Africa.

“This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century, at a time when our efforts are focused on liberty and human rights,” FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said in a statement. Diouf further noted that the goal of reducing by half the number of undernourished people by 2015 is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve.

For more information, read http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/8836/icode/  FAO's The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008 is available for download at http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0291e/i0291e00.htm