Number of hungry people declines - UN

[September 15 2010]

The number of chronically hungry people in the world dipped considerably below the 1 billion mark — the first drop in 15 years — thanks partly to a fall in food prices after spikes that sparked rioting a few years ago, U.N. agencies said. Still, an estimated 925 million people are undernourished worldwide, and the latest figures dont reflect the repercussions from the massive flooding in Pakistan.

The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organizations report suggested some progress in the battle to end hunger, but stressed the world is far from achieving the U.N. promoted Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of undernourished people from 20 percent in 1990-92 to 10 percent in 2015.

The report estimated there are 98 million fewer chronically hungry people than in 2009, when the figure just topped 1 billion. U.N. officials announcing the figures said that 1,800 calories per day is considered the minimum energy intake on average. Anyone regularly without that intake would be considered undernourished, or "chronically hungry." The drop in the chronically hungry is partly because food prices have fallen from peaks in 2007-2008, when they sparked violence in several developing countries, and because cereal and rice harvests have been strong. Cereal production this year was the third-highest ever recorded, despite a drought-fueled wheat shortfall in Russia, said FAO director-general Jacques Diouf.