WASHINGTON, Jun 22 (OneWorld.net) — World hunger is esti­mated to reach his­toric highs in 2009 with more than 1 mil­lion peo­ple going hun­gry every day — but there are solu­tions, reports the UN food agency.

What’s the Story?

“A dan­ger­ous mix of the global eco­nomic slow­down com­bined with stub­bornly high food prices in many coun­tries has pushed some 100 mil­lion more peo­ple than last year into chronic hunger and poverty,” said Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agri­cul­tural Orga­ni­za­tion (FAO).

Hunger is pro­jected to increase world­wide by 11 per cent, top­ping 1 bil­lion this year, with the major­ity of the world’s under­nour­ished liv­ing in devel­op­ing coun­tries, notes the FAO. The orga­ni­za­tion attrib­utes the rise to ascend­ing unem­ploy­ment, depressed incomes, and high food prices worldwide.

“The silent hunger cri­sis — affect­ing one sixth of all of human­ity — poses a seri­ous risk for world peace and secu­rity,” con­tin­ued Diouf. “We urgently need to forge a broad con­sen­sus on the total and rapid erad­i­ca­tion of hunger in the world and to take the nec­es­sary actions.”

In par­tic­u­lar, Diouf stressed the impor­tance of invest­ing in agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion and pro­duc­tiv­ity in poor coun­tries, adding that a strong agri­cul­tural sec­tor is cru­cial to fight­ing poverty and hunger and is a pre­req­ui­site for over­all eco­nomic growth.

“Many of the world’s poor and hun­gry are small­holder farm­ers in devel­op­ing coun­tries. Yet they have the poten­tial not only to meet their own needs but to boost food secu­rity and catal­yse broader eco­nomic growth,” said Kanayo F. Nwanze, pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tional Fund for Agri­cul­tural Devel­op­ment. “To unleash this poten­tial and reduce the num­ber of hun­gry peo­ple in the world, gov­ern­ments, sup­ported by the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity, need to pro­tect core invest­ments in agri­cul­ture so that small­holder farm­ers have access not only to seeds and fer­tilis­ers but to tai­lored tech­nolo­gies, infra­struc­ture, rural finance, and mar­kets.” (Read the full state­ment from the FAO below.)

Small Farm­ers ‘Are at the Heart’ of a Hunger Solution

Invest­ing in small farm­ers is vital to reliev­ing poverty and hunger in Africa, con­cluded groups at the recent World Eco­nomic Forum on Africa, say­ing irri­ga­tion sys­tems, new tech­nol­ogy, and mar­ket access will improve farm­ers’ pro­duc­tiv­ity and help ensure food security.

“‘We have approx­i­mately 80 mil­lion small-scale farm­ers in Africa who pro­duce very lit­tle — not because they do not want to be more pro­duc­tive, but because they are not able to,” argued Flo­rence Wambugu, head of the Kenya-based Africa Har­vest Biotech Foun­da­tion, a lead­ing lob­by­ist for genetic mod­i­fi­ca­tion tech­nol­ogy on the con­ti­nent. “Rais­ing these farm­ers’ pro­duc­tiv­ity is pos­si­ble and it is key to Africa’s food secu­rity and over­all eco­nomic growth,” added Wambugu.

Coun­tries in sub-Saharan Africa — where 32 per­cent of peo­ple are under­nour­ished — con­sti­tute many of the world’s hunger “hot spots,” accord­ing to the Bread for the World Insti­tute and The Hunger Project, a relief orga­ni­za­tion that says Africa has been its bud­get pri­or­ity over the last 15 years.

A Legally Bind­ing Commitment

The world is “very far from reach­ing” the UN tar­get of cut­ting in half the num­ber of peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing chronic hunger by 2015, agri­cul­ture lead­ers from eight of the world’s major indus­tri­al­ized nations admit­ted at a four-day con­fer­ence in Tre­viso, Italy ear­lier this year.

As July’s G8 sum­mit approaches, the human­i­tar­ian agency Oxfam Inter­na­tional is call­ing on lead­ers to com­mit to a legally bind­ing agree­ment to erad­i­cate hunger.

“There is cur­rently no way of hold­ing gov­ern­ments to account for their fail­ure to deliver on promises to tackle hunger,” said Oxfam. “A legally bind­ing com­mit­ment would enable civil soci­ety to hold gov­ern­ments to account for their fail­ure to pre­vent peo­ple dying from hunger in a world where we have the means to pre­vent it.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for $20 bil­lion to help restore global food secu­rity, but lead­ers at the April G20 Sum­mit in Lon­don made no fund­ing promises.

“Unless G8 lead­ers put more money on the table the sit­u­a­tion could worsen,” warned the poverty relief group Action­Aid. “The G8 must con­cen­trate on ensur­ing a funded global food plan.”

Agri­cul­ture Is ‘Key’ to Cli­mate Change

“If fun­da­men­tal cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion goals are to be met, inter­na­tional cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions must include agri­cul­ture,” appealed an inter­na­tional food pol­icy think tank ear­lier this year.

Agri­cul­ture must be on the agenda of the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFCC) nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen this Decem­ber because global warm­ing has a sig­nif­i­cant impact on food pro­duc­tion, agri­cul­ture can help mit­i­gate cli­mate change, and poor farm­ers will need help adapt­ing to chang­ing tem­per­a­tures, states the Inter­na­tional Food Pol­icy Research Insti­tute in a report released in April.

In a sep­a­rate study, two envi­ron­men­tal groups con­cluded that improved farm­ing and land use tech­niques could play a key role in reduc­ing global green house gas emis­sions, and these inno­v­a­tive strate­gies are avail­able to be imple­mented today.

Accord­ing to aid groups, cli­mate change and erratic weather pat­terns, trade imbal­ances, increas­ing fuel costs, and the con­ver­sion of land to grow crops for bio­fu­els are all fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the ongo­ing global hunger crisis.

Take Action

For the lat­est news on the food cri­sis and infor­ma­tion about what groups are doing to ease hunger world­wide — and how you can lend a hand — see OneWorld.net’s global good cri­sis alert.