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U.N. report shows hunger on the rise

By SARAH A. WELSH, UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Global goals to halve the number of the world's hungry by 2015 is unattainable at the present rate of reduction, says a new report issued Tuesday by a U.N. body.

The report by the Food and Agriculture Organization said though during the past decade the number of chronically undernourished people in the world -- 800 million when the goal was set in 1996 -- declined by 2.1 million per year, to meet the 2015 goal, the numbers would have to be far higher.

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"The annual reductions must be accelerated to 26 million per year, more than 12 times the pace ... achieved during the 1990s," Hartwig de Haen, FAO's assistant director-general, told the National Press Club.

Last year, the FAO said current rates of reduction set the 2015 goal back more than 100 years, to 2150.

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Furthermore, the report concludes that early, positive trends were reversed. Substantial gains made during the first half of the 1990s were offset by an overall increase in hunger during the second half, and by a declining rate of hunger reduction even in countries with successful programs such as China.

Regional giants India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria, all of who had beaten back hunger from 1992-97, despite rising populations, saw their numbers of undernourished rise after 1997.

De Haen told United Press International that despite rapid economic growth and a solid distribution system, India has seen the percentage of hungry people in its population remain stable, in part because of recently implemented government policies. These policies, he said, guarantee that farmers will be able to sell certain quantities of their produce at a fixed price; intended to aid rural producers, these policies have actually driven up the market price of staple goods, he said.

Although drought is still the leading cause of food crises, the report shows that the share of food shortages driven by human factors such as armed conflict and the ravages of HIV/AIDS has increased in recent years. In Zimbabwe, a household's production of maize was found to drop by 61 percent after an AIDS-related death; in several African countries, AIDS has claimed 60 percent to 70 percent of farm laborers.

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De Haen acknowledged the overall trends but pointed to specific countries that have recently introduced promising hunger-reduction programs -- Brazil, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, and Ghana. These countries, he said, "have shown the political will to invest in agriculture."

"We are now in a position to make very specific recommendations that countries can follow to alleviate hunger and malnutrition sustainably," he said at the NPC.

The FAO lists three elements that developing nations with high food security share: rapid economic growth, financial investment in agriculture, and a higher level of social development as measured by factors such as literacy, infant and child mortality and life expectancy.

"For too long have development policy-makers assumed that hunger is caused by poverty," de Haen said, suggesting the inverse is true - that, in fact, chronic hunger makes it impossible to rise out of poverty.

In response, the FAO recommends targeted programs for rural populations, focusing on basic nutrition education, home gardens, and other projects that will produce tangible results.

De Haen named Mexico's education program for women and marginalized social groups as a prime example.

The agricultural investment that FAO considers so critical needs to be targeted at individual rural farmers, Michael Hage, FAO regional information officer, told UPI. "That's where the hungry people are," he said, and they need basic infrastructure -- roads that will give them access to markets, wells and pumps for irrigation, and tools for planting and harvesting.

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De Haen said this investment is the responsibility of developing governments.

"They themselves must create market infrastructure in order to benefit from trade globalization," he said.

Charles Riemenschneider, FAO director for North America, also told the gathering that Western aid, cyclical in nature, has refocused on rural agriculture though it fell out of favor in the 1990s.

"People recognize that that was a mistake," he said, since pulling funds away from rural farmers meant ignoring a large majority of the world's poor.

De Haen spoke to the role of first-world citizens in reducing hunger through their "consumption behavior, political attitudes, and donation to NGOs."

He praised non-governmental organizations for working at the grassroots level and ensuring that profits are returned to farmers in developing countries. He acknowledged, however, that donor fatigue is sometimes a problem, particularly in African nations, but said that in many cases, "hunger and food insecurity cause conflict. Hunger reduction goes toward conflict reduction."

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