The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the
world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in
2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing
countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties.
There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO 2012).
One-and-a-half-million children are in imminent danger of
starvation in West Africa, according to The United Nations Children's Fund,
But this is a crisis across many counties, affecting many
millions, leaving many lives on a knife-edge – and the U.N. has already said it
needs another $1.5 billion to tackle the problem.
Hunger kills more people every year than Aids, malaria and
tuberculosis combined!
The number of hungry grew in Africa over the period, from
175 million to 239 million, with nearly 20 million added in the last few years.
Nearly one in four are hungry. Harmful economic systems are the principal cause
of poverty and hunger. Conflict and climate change are increasingly viewed as
current and future causes of hunger and poverty.
The former UN food envoy Jean Ziegler explains his claim
that we are all accomplices in creating a world where children starve to death
– in a confrontational interview with Swiss media Ziegler. According to the UN
World Food Program, there is enough food in the world for 12 billion people. If
today people are still starving, then this is organized crime, mass murder.
Every five seconds, one child under the age of ten dies, one billion people are
permanently and heavily undernourished. Nobody works harder than farmers in
Africa. They just cannot thrive because they are not supported. No irrigation,
no seed, no draft animals, no tractors, no fertilizer, nothing.
 |
| image from www.biotech-now.org |
Climate change
Climate change will have catastrophic impact on food
production. It is clear that the effects of climate change will be as
unpredictable as they will be widespread. While it may be possible to predict
particular events with some probability (ex. saltwater flooding in Bangladesh
and southern India, drought in the Horn of Africa, and hurricanes in the
Philippines) it is also likely that regions will suffer from more than one type
of extreme weather pattern. For example, Kenya in recent years has experienced
a wide spectrum of extremes ranging from drought, heavy rains and unprecedented
cold in concurrent seasons. We know that climate change is only going to get
worse. If we do not take action to revive seed diversity and seed-saving
knowledge in farmers' hands, we will be leaving a disastrously narrow gene pool
from which future generations will struggle to farm and eat.
Food waste
"We've all got a responsibility to tackle food waste
and there is no quick-fix single solution. Little changes can make a big
difference, like storing fruit and vegetables in the right way.
"Food waste is a global issue and collaborative action
is essential if we are to successfully reduce food waste and reap the financial
and environmental benefits of doing so." We need policies and practices
that ensure farmers' seed-saving knowledge is passed down to future.
Seed diversity
Recent decades have seen a dramatic decrease in global seed
diversity, for the first time in history.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate that
75% of the world's crop diversity has been lost through this profound
transformation of global food production.
The need to save, exchange and pass seed on is so important
to farming that it is embedded into cultural practices around the world to
ensure future generations can have the seed diversity and complex farming
knowledge they need to continue to grow food and develop crops.
we need policies and practices that actively support the
revival of seed diversity and seed-saving knowledge in farmers' hands, and that
ensure this is passed on to the generations to come.
