Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday, November 25, 2003
David Brough

"We know what needs to be done, but we have failed to do it," said Ali Gurkan Arslan, managing editor of the FAO's annual hunger report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2003."

He was referring to the need for political will to invest more in farming, boost economic growth and tackle food crises. The FAO said deep poverty, HIV/AIDS, hunger emergencies caused by conflicts and droughts, and fast population growth were to blame for worsening hunger, growing fastest in poor countries. The HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa was one of the most alarming drivers as it weakened the most active farm workers.

"If the most economically productive members of the community can't work because of AIDS, income potential and access to food is lost," Gurkan said.

NUMBERS ON THE RISE

The number of hungry people around the world increased by 18 million to 842 million in the latest reporting period 1999-2001 from 1995-1997, the FAO hunger report said. "FAO's latest estimates signal a setback in the war against hunger," it said.

FAO said the total of 842 million people included 798 million in developing countries, 10 million in industrialized countries and 34 million in countries in transition.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said the number of hungry people in the developing world appeared to be climbing. "We must ask ourselves why this has happened," Diouf said in a foreword to the report.

"Countries that succeeded in reducing hunger were characterized by more rapid economic growth and specifically by more rapid growth in their agricultural sectors," he wrote.

"They also exhibited slower population growth and lower levels of HIV infection."

RICH COUNTRIES MUST INVEST

In Washington, Hartwig de Haen, an FAO assistant director-general, said rich countries must invest more in the farm sectors of developing countries.

"The role of capital is decisive. Investment in agriculture is a precondition for growth in incomes of the poor and the food supply," he told Reuters.

The report underlined the need for political will to win the war on hunger and highlighted Brazil, where President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has launched a Zero Hunger project, as a leading example of a country that had made progress.

Prospects of achieving the target set by the FAO World Food Summit (WFS) in 1996 to halve the level of world hunger by 2015 look even dimmer, the report said.

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