The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Tuesday (December 9) that higher food prices have increased the number of people across the globe affected by chronic hunger by 40 million this year, bringing the estimated total to 963 million people. About two-thirds of the world's undernourished live in Asia, with the worst affected countries in that region being India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan, according to the FAO's State of Food Insecurity report. In addition, one in three people in sub-Saharan Africa remain chronically hungry, the Associated Press (AP) attributed the report as saying. The increase in the number of hungry is mostly attributable to the sharp rise in food prices earlier this year, the FAO said. Although the global prices of major cereals have fallen by more than 50 percent from their peaks earlier this year, they are still high compared to previous years, the AP attributed the agency as saying. Farmers have been unable to increase production to take advantage of the higher prices because they lack access to seeds, fertilizer, water and markets, according to the AP. "This sad reality should not be acceptable at the dawn of the 21st century," the AP quoted FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf as saying. "Not enough has been done to reduce hunger and not enough is being done to prevent more people (from) becoming hungry." The FAO reported that the growing number of chronically hungry casts further doubt on the world's ability to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving global hunger by the year 2015, particularly as the global financial crisis is further reducing demand in industrialized countries, which threatens to affect exporters in developing countries. According to the report, export volumes are expected to grow by 4.9 percent in 2009, compared to a growth of 6.3 percent in 2007. The report noted that some countries, like Thailand and Vietnam, have made substantial progress toward the 2015 goal. But South and Central Asia are among the regions that have suffered significant setbacks in hunger reduction.
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