Fighting hunger worldwide is a key challenge of the 21st century, Nader Noureddin* writes The UN Food and Agriculture (FAO) Food Security Summit, recently held in Rome, warned that serious actions have to be taken to eradicate hunger. According to FAO figures, 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009 -- 105 million more than in 2008. Indeed, there are more hungry people now than at any time since 1970. Hunger has increased not as a result of poor harvests, but because of high domestic food prices, lower incomes, and increasing unemployment due to the global economic crisis. Many poor people cannot afford to buy the food they need. On average, a person needs about 1,800k calories (kcal) per day as a minimum energy intake. People who are chronically hungry don't eat enough to get the energy they need to lead active lives. Their predicament is called "food insecurity". The FAO defines food insecurity as, "A situation that exists when people lack secure access to sufficient amounts of safe food and nutritious food for normal growth and development and an active and healthy live." The majority of the hungry live in developing countries, with Asia home to the largest number of hungry (642 millions in 11 countries) while Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of hunger, with more than one in three being undernourished, compared by the global average of one in six (265 millions in 21 countries). Latin America and the Caribbean have 53 million people in hunger, the Near East and North Africa 42 million, and developed countries 15 million. In this context, the World Summit on Food Security was held in Rome, 16-18 November 2009. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called the current food crisis "a wake-up call for tomorrow" and that there could be no food security without climate security. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf stated that in developed countries two to four per cent of the population are able to produce enough food to feed the entire nation, and even to export, while in the majority of developing countries, 60-80 per cent of the population are not able to meet food needs. He added that the planet can easily feed all human life, provided that decisions made are honoured and the required resources are effectively mobilised. Diouf called for an increase in official development assistance to agriculture, and incentives to encourage private investment. Diouf explained that eliminating hunger requires $44 billion a year of official development assistance to be invested in infrastructure and technology, while only $7 billion per year was allocated to this purpose in the last food summit held in June 2008 ($20 billion from G8 countries over three years). This year, seven of the G8 heads of state did not attend the summit, perhaps for fear of coming under pressure to raise this budget while their countries suffer the fallout of the current economic crisis. For the first time, the private sector was invited specifically to share in the summit. The declaration of the summit called on the world to undertake urgent action to eradicate hunger through specific steps: a global partnership for agriculture, food security and nutrition; increased production and productivity of agriculture; and efforts to reduce pre- and post- harvest losses. World population is expected to surpass nine billion in 2050. It is estimated that agricultural output will have to increase by 70 per cent between now and then to meet food demands. Consequently, measures have to be taken to ensure access -- physical, social and economic -- by all people to sufficient, safe and nutritious food, with particular attention to access for women and children. Food should not be used as a tool of political and economic pressure. In Egypt, we should pay more attention to increasing food production and productivity instead of depending on imports for around 60 per cent of our food needs. We should support and aid all cultivation outputs, such as fertilisers, high productivity seeds and pesticides. More than 80 per cent of expected increments of food production will come from old land and only 20 per cent from new or reclaimed lands, according to the FAO. Egyptian food security should be taken seriously by studying how to feed the Egyptian people in 2050, when the population is expected to reach 120 million. * The writer is professor of soil and water sciences at Cairo University.
