U.N.: 1 Billion-Plus Lack Enough Food

(AP)  One in six people in the world - or more than 1 billion - is now hungry, a historic high due largely to the global economic crisis and stubbornly high food prices, a U.N. agency said Friday.

Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are hungry, meaning they receive fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report.

Almost all the world's undernourished live in developing countries, where food prices have fallen more slowly than in the richer nations, the report said. Poor countries need more aid and agricultural investment to cope, it said.

"The silent hunger crisis, affecting one-sixth of all of humanity, poses a serious risk for world peace and security," said the agency's Director-General Jacques Diouf.

Soaring prices for staples, such as rice, triggered riots in the developing world last year.

Hunger increased despite strong 2009 cereal production, and a mild retreat in food prices from the highs of mid-2008. However, average prices at the end of last year were still 24 percent higher in real terms than in 2006, FAO said.

The global economic crisis has compounded the problem for people dealing with pay cuts or job losses. Individual countries have also some lost flexibility in handling price fluctuations, as the crisis has made tools such as currency devaluation less effective.

The report predicted the urban poor would likely be hit hardest as foreign investment declines and demand for exports drops, and that millions would return to the countryside, which in turn could put pressure on rural communities and resources.

Globally there are now about 1.02 billion people hungry, up 11 percent from last year's 915 million, the agency said. It based its estimate on analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Asia and the Pacific, the world's most populous region, has the largest number of hungry people at 642 million.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest hunger rate, with 265 million undernourished representing 32 percent of the region's population.

In the developed world, undernourishment is a growing concern, with 15 million now hungry, the report said.

The crisis also affects the quality of nutrition, as families tend to buy cheaper foods, such as grains, which are rich in calories but contain fewer proteins than meat or dairy products.

Diouf urged governments to immediately set up social protection programs to improve food access for those in need. He said small farmers should be helped with seeds, tools and fertilizers.

He urged structural, long-term changes, such as increasing production in low-income countries, noting that world hunger had been increasing before the financial downturn.

[babooph]

STERILIZATION !!! Those not born will not eat ,carry disease,or pollute-VERY SIMPLE!!!

[SteelersWinAgain]

What many of these nations need is birth control. The US needs to implement birth control regulations for career welfare and WIC recipients and illegals. The middle class is broke. We can't take care of you and your 6 children you can't afford to have but insist on having. We will not do it anymore. That day will come.

[scottyusa]

Starvation, war and climate change. We are all doomed. We are living on a grossly overpopulated rock and cannot get along with each other.

[whitemale08]

-chetunice: Here's how we do fix the mess.

First go to larouchepac.com and read the solution just written by Lyndon Larouche.

Lyndon Larouche can best explain the solution because he was the only 'physical' economists (there's a difference between so-called Wall Street economists and 'physical economists), who forecasted to a 'T' the breakdown crisis were are facing right now.

When Lyndon Larouche gave historical webcast in the month of July 2007, he pronounced at the time the stock market was at 14,000 that: "The Anglo-Dutch Financial Monetary system will die...",

I nearly became overwhelmed with fright and fear because I never ever heard any forecaster speak with such utter certaincy and conclusiveness and surity.

Then when Lyndon Larouche added a little detail as to how it would unfold, he said: "The Treasure Sect., Hank Paulson, will soon become very scared and will panic...the Bush Administration will admit to the world that we are in a crisis".

When President George W. Bush popped out of the White House shortly after like a Jack-in-the-box and admited to the world: "Our entire economy is in danger", just like Larouche predicted, I gasped!

I thought immediately to myself, "Lyndon Larouche must be a prophet or a majician with majical powers", but there was more.

Larouche emphasized: "...this is not [just] a recession or a depression but the end of the Anglo-Dutch Neo-Liberal Financial and Monetary system that we know of today as the British Empire...we are at the end of the road, there is no hope, no recovery under any current U.S. President of future president, the system is FINISHED!".

Again, I gasped, then I watched the implosion of our economy, starting with MASSIVE lay-offs, our entire auto-industry collapsing on itself and it's only the beginning.

Now, I'm not that smart of a man, but one thing that has guided me through out life, and that is, if someone tells me the truth, and it happens, he now has total credibility less everyone else be damned!

You can call me a 'tin-foiled' hat wearer all you want for listening to peoples like Lyndon Larouche, Alex Jones and others but so far, most of everything that they have been warning about for years and years has come true.

If you are sincere about learning the true solution to our mess then go to the source of credibility, the mass-media doesn't have it, Obama lost his, only Lyndon Larouche has it, Alex Jones has alot of it.

larouchepac.com

[cheteunice]

Let me correct my earlier post, over population is the #1 pproblem facing the Earth today.

[credibility2]

How much is this due to over-population? How much is due to illiteracy? How much is due to warring governments and tribal barbarism? The first leads to all other problems. Over the decades, billions have been poured into all of these areas, with many agencies trying to educate and get these people out of their immobile mentality to move-forward. Lands have been stripped of any possible usefulness or growing medium, yet many refuse to leave, staying behind to rot and suffer in their own shortcomings. It's as if all of this has been wasted since many of these people continue on and on with furthering their own demise and not learning from their history of mistakes, all of which were preventable.

[cheteunice]

The #1 problem is over population. We can not sustain this number of people. Eventually more wars will break out to gain the resources including food that everyone needs to survive.

[cheteunice]

One of the biggest problems that the world faces is the terrible over population. I have read that the Earth can sustain long term roughly half of the population we currently have. When is the U.N. going to face this problem?

[All_pols_need_2_go]

They often overlook the fact that their very own governments and politicians are living high on the hog while their citizens starve. They also fail to mention how they refuse to use certain chemicals that would improve their crops output and reduce disease in people and plants. Or how they refuse to get vaccinated or simply refuse to move someplace that HAS FOOD. As Sam said why are we always sending people food, we should be sending them U-hauls and moving them to the food.

Then you have the fact that the UN is a bloated, crooked as sin world organization that lies and misleads who knows what to believe. I don't ever recall hearing them say they were flush with cash and not begging for more and more.

Here is an idea. If you can't already barely feed yourself try not having 3-6 kids as that is likely only going to make things even harder when it comes to eating. Hard concept to digest I know but simply put. If you can't feed them, DON'T BREED THEM!

[debinok1]

The time of sorrows is here. There are even worse things on the horizon.

[speakinup22]

Last time I heard, China was pretty wealthy. We all know the US regularly gets bashed for sending aid to places where folks are starving.


Just what is China doing besides hording their wealth ?

Are THEY being socially responsible.