Food Prices Add 40 Million People to Number of Malnournished in Year

Another 40 million people in the world are hungry this year mainly because of higher food prices, according to preliminary UN estimates. This brings the number of undernourished people in the world to 963 million, compared with 923 million in 2007.

But the worldwide economic recession could tip far more people into hunger and poverty next year, the UN's Food and Agriculture organization warned in Rome today.

"World food prices have dropped since early 2008, but lower prices have not ended the food crisis in many poor countries," said the FAO's assistant director-general Hafez Ghanem.

"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. The structural problems of hunger, like the lack of access to land, credit and employment, combined with high food prices remain a dire reality," he said.

The report, the State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008, suggests the price of major cereals has fallen by nearly 50% from its peak earlier this year. But in October they were still 28% higher than compared in October 2006. Seeds and fertilizer prices are also more than twice what they were in 2006, leaving poor farmers unable to increase production.

The vast majority of the world's undernourished people ? 907 million ? live in developing countries, according to the 2007 data. Of these, 65% live in only 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 .

In sub-Saharan Africa, one in three people ? or 236 million (2007) ? are now chronically hungry, the highest proportion of undernourished people in the total population, according to the report. Most of the increase occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo where persistent conflict has pushed the proportion of undernourished from 29% to 76%.

Latin America and the Caribbean were most successful in reducing hunger before the surge in food prices but high food prices have increased the number of hungry people in the sub-region to 51 million in 2007, says the report.

"The world hunger situation may further deteriorate as the financial crisis hits the real economies of more and more countries. Reduced demand in developed countries threatens incomes in developing countries via exports. Remittances, investments and other capital flows including development aid are also at risk. Emerging economies in particular are subject to lasting impacts from the credit crunch even if the crisis itself is short-lived," it said.