Agrifood Economics

Anti-Hunger Programme: A twin-track approach to hunger reduction

Priorities for national and international action
Year: 2003
Author(s): FAO
The world now produces much more food than is required to provide everyone with an adequate diet, yet 840 million people - almost one person in seven - do not have enough to eat. Most of these people live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. That hunger should still be such a massive problem in today’s world defies logical explanation. On a global scale the technology exists to enable farmers to produce an excess of food. This, combined with a rapid change in food habits, has caused obesity to become one of the fastest rising health problems in both developed and developing countries. Information systems can pinpoint where food is needed, and the means exist to move food rapidly around the globe. The existence of hunger in a world of plenty is not just a moral outrage; it is also short-sighted from an economic viewpoint. Hungry people make poor workers, they are bad learners (if they go to school at all), they are prone to sickness and they die young. Hunger is also transmitted across generations, as underfed mothers give birth to underweight children whose potential for mental and physical activity is impaired. The productivity of individuals and the growth of entire nations are severely compromised by widespread hunger. Hunger breeds desperation, and the hungry are an easy prey to those who seek to gain power and influence through crime, force or terror, endangering national and global stability. It is, therefore, in everyone’s self-interest - rich and poor alike - to fight hunger.
Publication type: Manual/guidelines
ISBN: 92-5-105051-1