PHA-Exchange> Halving hunger: the numbers

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Today, a total of 792 mill people in dvping countries remain chronically
hungry.
Around 3/4 live in rural areas, and more than 60% are women.
The cost of halving the No. of the hungry was estimated at U$60 bill over
the 18 yrs from 1997 to 2015: just over $3 bill a yr in increased speding.
There are more chronically hungry people in Asia, but 18 out of 23 countries
facing the most severe problems are African.
70% of Africans work in agric in some capacity. Aid to African agric has
fallen by 40% since 1980.
A 1% increase in crop yields reduces the number of people living on less
than $1 a day by between 0.6 and 1.2%.
Armed conflict and civil strife caused agric output losses in devping
countries estimated at an average of $4.3 bill a yr between 1970 and 1997.
Between 1968 and 1998, intl trade in major foodstuffs inceased twice as fast
as food production.
Agric trade is less than 10% of total world merchandise trade. Most --70% of
both exports and imports-- is between developed cuntries (70% by
transnationals; a small No. of these dominate major traded agric
commodities ).


Source: Food for All, Panos Inst., 2001