2023-07-12 17:56:16
The figures are terrifying. In just four yearsthe war in Ukrainethe climate crisis and the pandemic have skyrocketed the number of people punished by hunger. A total of 735 million people are currently food insecure, that is, 122 million more than in 2019. These are the conclusions of ‘The state of food security and nutrition in the world (SOFI)‘, the most important report on the subject that is presented annually in the world, released this Wednesday in Rome by the UN Food Organization (FAO).
“The recovery from the global pandemic has been uneven, and the war in Ukraine has affected the availability of nutritious food and healthy diets. This is the new normal“, commented the director general of the FAO, the Chinese Qu Dongyu. “Climate change, conflicts and economic instability are alienating marginalized people even more security”, added the Chinese Dongyu, who has just been re-elected to the post.
The words of Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, another UN agency based in the Italian capital, have been even more dramatic. “As humanitarian workers, we are faced with the biggest challenge we’ve ever seen. We need the global community to act quickly, intelligently and compassionately to reverse course and reverse the trend of hunger,” he said.
Resignation
The most affected areas are Western Asia, the Caribbean and all sub-regions of Africa. This continent, in fact, continues to be the most affected region. Over there one in five people face lie down on an empty stomach. This is more than twice the world average. Latin Americaon the other hand, is the only region in which progress has been observed in the fight against this plague.
Resignedlythe UN has assumed so it is almost impossible that is reached the goal of ‘zero hunger’ in 2030, approved in 2015. “If trends continue as they are, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending hunger by 2030 cannot be achieved,” the SOFI report reads. “In fact, it is predicted that almost 600 million people will still suffer from hunger in 2030,” he continues.
Even more. UN experts have also pointed out that it has worsened the possibility of people to access healthy diets around the planet. “More than 3,100 million people in the world, that is, 42% of the world population, they couldn’t afford a healthy diet in 2021,” he said.
Processed foods
“Food insecurity affects people living in the poorest most rural zones. Moderate or severe food insecurity affected the 33% of adults living in rural areas and 26% of those residing in cities”, they added. “The prevalence of growth retardation in children it is higher in rural areas (35.8%) than in urban areas (22.4%). Wasting is higher in rural areas (10.5%) than in urban areas (7.7%), while the overweight is slightly higher in urban areas (5.4%) compared to rural areas (3.5%),” they detailed.
In this sense, the report also notes that it is changing the structure of the world population, with an increasing trend of people moving to urban areas. The forecast is, in fact, that in 2050 almost seven out of 10 people will live in cities. This is why, when it comes to making politics, these new phenomena must be taken into account, which suggest, for example, that “the consumption of highly processed foods it is also increasing in peri-urban and rural areas of some countries,” says the UN.
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