The Fao report on food security in the world explains that in 2017 a new increase was recorded in the number of people suffering from hunger.
The world is once again suffering from hunger. For the third consecutive year, the number of malnourished people on Earth has increased, reaching 821 million people in 2017. This represents 10.9 per cent of the world's population: a figure down from 14.5 per cent in 2005, but up from 10.6 per cent in 2015.
This is explained in a report published on 11 September by the FAO, entitled "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World", according to which "155 million children under the age of five are stunted (too short for their age), while 52 million suffer from chronic wasting, meaning their weight is not adequate relative to their height".
The continent most affected by the problem is Africa, with nearly 21 per cent of its population classified as malnourished. The figure drops to 11.4 per cent in Asia, 7 per cent in Oceania, and 6.1 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean nations. In North America and Europe, meanwhile, the figure does not exceed 2.5 per cent: it is here that – the United Nations agency's study adds – the majority of the "approximately 41 million children who are overweight" are instead concentrated.
Numerous factors keep the percentage of people suffering from hunger in the world high. Changes in eating habits, for example, play a role. And the consequences of the economic crisis that has hit a significant part of the planet in recent years are still being felt. But the main causes remain wars and climate change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2xIzdY8ENY It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the country currently experiencing the most widespread and severe food crisis is Yemen, a nation devastated for years by a particularly fierce war. Here, one third of the population is now undernourished.
"Over the past ten years, conflicts have increased dramatically and have become more complex and harder to resolve," the heads of FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Unicef, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization stated in the report's preface. A phenomenon whose consequences are borne above all by children.
"This is," they added, "a wake-up call that we cannot afford to ignore: we will not end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030 unless we address all the factors that undermine food security and nutrition." And the finger is pointed, indeed, also at climate change.
The report explains that climate change now represents one of the leading causes of food crises, owing to "exposure to extreme weather events that are more frequent, more intense and more complex". During 2017, such phenomena affected a total of 94.9 million people, who were forced to turn to humanitarian aid.
"Between 1986 and 2006 we observed an enormous growth in natural disasters related to climate, which now account for 80 per cent of all disasters," stressed FAO's Director of Emergencies, Dominique Burgeon. "Early or late seasons, or ones that have completely disappeared in some parts of the world, have a devastating impact on agricultural harvests," he added.
