• About us
  • Contact us
  • Our team
  • Terms of Service
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Kashmir Images - Latest News Update
Epaper
  • TOP NEWS
  • CITY & TOWNS
  • LOCAL
  • BUSINESS
  • NATION
  • WORLD
  • SPORTS
  • OPINION
    • EDITORIAL
    • ON HERITAGE
    • CREATIVE BEATS
    • INTERALIA
    • WIDE ANGLE
    • OTHER VIEW
    • ART SPACE
  • Photo Gallery
  • CARTOON
  • EPAPER
No Result
View All Result
Kashmir Images - Latest News Update
No Result
View All Result
Home WORLD

FAO: Rising prices, food insecurity add to ranks of hungry

Press Trust of india by Press Trust of india
January 24, 2023
in WORLD
A A
0
Global Hunger Index doesn’t reflect India’s true picture; index flawed measure of hunger: Govt
FacebookTwitterWhatsapp

Bangkok: Growing numbers of people in Asia lack enough to eat as food insecurity rises with higher prices and worsening poverty, according to a report released Tuesday by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and other United Nations agencies.

Nearly a half-billion people, more than eight in 10 of them in South Asia, were undernourished in 2021 and more than 1 billion faced moderate to severe food insecurity, the report said. For the world, the prevalence of food insecurity rose to more than 29 per cent in 2021 from 21 per cent in 2014.

Related posts

China says it was smeared in Biden State of the Union speech

China says Sino-India border dispute complicated, takes time; Ready to discuss delimitation

June 30, 2025
Muslim pilgrims converge at Mount Arafat for daylong worship as Hajj reaches its peak

Thousands of Indian pilgrims join millions of Muslims to perform Hajj in Saudi Arabia

June 6, 2025

The COVID-19 pandemic was a huge setback, causing mass job losses and disruptions, and the war in Ukraine has pushed up prices for food, energy and fertiliser, putting an adequate diet out of the reach of many millions, it said.

The report is the fifth annual stocktaking on food insecurity and hunger by UN agencies including the FAO, UNICEF, World Health Organisation and World Food Programme.

Over those years, progress toward alleviating hunger and malnutrition has stalled and then backslid as growing numbers of people lost the wherewithal to get enough to eat. The prevalence of undernourishment as measured by the UN agencies was 9.1 per cent in 2021, better than the 14.3 per cent in 2000 but up slightly from 2020.

Such figures show that “the slowdown in the fight against hunger continues,” said the report, which also highlights the growing food insecurity faced by people who have moved into cities, where they have less easy access to affordable food.

“Reforming our agrifood systems to produce nutritious food and ensure equitable access to healthy diets is critical,” it said.

The FAO’s Food Price Index has risen in the past several years, hitting a record in March 2022. It fell back as commodity prices declined somewhat later in the year but is still 28 per cent above the 2020 level.

The Asia-Pacific region imports nearly USD 2 trillion of food a year. Rising prices for basics like rice, wheat and oil hit the poor the hardest.

It’s part of what the UN agencies call the “5F” crisis of not enough food, feed, fertiliser, fuel and financing. The conflict in Ukraine has dealt a heavy blow in many countries that depended on the region for wheat, edible oils and fertilisers.

Nearly 2 billion people — or almost 45 per cent of people living in Asia — cannot afford healthy diets, contributing to problems with anemia and obesity as well as hunger.

Underscoring the impact of the pandemic, which hit vulnerable workers in the tourism and manufacturing industries especially hard, nearly one in 10 Thais were undernourished in 2019-2021, according to data in the report — a higher proportion than several years earlier and also than in many other Southeast Asian countries where average incomes are much lower.

Poverty already had risen by 2.6 per cent between 2015-2018, according to World Bank data.

“An increase in poverty and in undernourishment would go together,” Sridhar Dharmapuri, the FAO’s author for the report released Tuesday, said in explaining the situation.

Unhealthy diets and inadequate food are also compromising future health and productivity, as they cause children to suffer from stunting or wasting and make them more susceptible to illness. The report says nearly a quarter of children in the Asia-Pacific are affected by stunting, or small height for their ages.

 

Previous Post

PepsiCo and CARE introduce USD 18-million global programme in India

Next Post

Not familiar with BBC documentary, very familiar with shared ‘democratic values’ with India: US State Department

Press Trust of india

Press Trust of india

Next Post
No change in policy on Jammu and Kashmir, says US

Not familiar with BBC documentary, very familiar with shared ‘democratic values' with India: US State Department

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ePaper

  • About us
  • Contact us
  • Our team
  • Terms of Service
E-Mailus: kashmirimages123@gmail.com

© 2024 Kashmir Images - Designed by GITS.

No Result
View All Result
  • TOP NEWS
  • CITY & TOWNS
  • LOCAL
  • BUSINESS
  • NATION
  • WORLD
  • SPORTS
  • OPINION
    • EDITORIAL
    • ON HERITAGE
    • CREATIVE BEATS
    • INTERALIA
    • WIDE ANGLE
    • OTHER VIEW
    • ART SPACE
  • Photo Gallery
  • CARTOON
  • EPAPER

© 2024 Kashmir Images - Designed by GITS.