| ■ 75 Million More People Went Hungry in 2007: UN | 2008.10.20 |
| About 75 million more people joined the ranks of the world's underfed last year, making the goal of halving global hunger by 2015 "even more remote," the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this week. In 2007, higher food prices were a major reason why the number of malnourished people rose from 850 million to 925 million, said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, Agence France Presse reported. Of the 75 million new people who were underfed last year, 41 million were in Asia and the Pacific, 24 million in sub-Saharan Africa, six million in Latin America, and four million in North Africa and the Middle East, the Rome-based agency said. The FAO added that continuing increases in the prices of grains and oil probably mean that the number of underfed people worldwide will go up again this year, AFP reported. |