THE RIGHT TO FOOD: A RIGHT FOR EVERYONE - Food Systems Failure - page 99

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THE RIGHT TO FOOD: A RIGHT FOR EVERYONE
Claire Maho n 1
From a right to food perspective, the past few years have been some of the bleakest in
human history. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2008, p6),
as a result of the recent global food crisis, the number of hronically hungry people
rose by 75 million in 2007, to reah a total of 923 million undernourished people in
2008. More recently, the FAO (2009) released the projection for 2009: 1 billion and 20
million people are suffering from hunger. 2 1 billion and 20 million. It is a number that
needs to be repeated merely to grasp its magnitude. When we realize that this number
represents hungry people, its gravity becomes incomprehensible.
At the core of this peak in undernourishment is the global inancial crisis, whih
follows and partly overlaps with the other two global Fs - the global fuel crisis and
the global food crisis. Because the global economic slowdown followed the 2006-08
food crisis, the impact of the food crisis impact was made even more severe. The FAO
estimates that the financial crisis contributed to an 11 per cent increase in global hun-
ger in 2009. This means that the number of hungry people is growing at a rate almost
ten times that of our population growth.
Almost all the world's undernourished live in developing countries. The largest
percentage of the hungry live in Asia and the Pacific, where an estimated 642 million
people are sufering from hronic hunger. In sub-Saharan Africa it is 265 million, or
32 per cent, whih makes for the largest prevalence of undernourishment relative to
population size; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; while the Near East
and North Africa has registered the largest percentage increase in undernourishment,
putting the absolute igure at 42 million. In developed countries 15 million are hron-
ically hungry.
The fact that this obscene level of hunger and malnourishment occurs in a world
renowned for over-consumption is perhaps the most concerning aspect of the situ-
ation. Globally, we are capable of producing far more food than is needed to feed the