18 December 2009
India food prices hit 10-year high
Food prices in India have risen to a high of nearly 20% over last year, the highest rate in a decade.
The prices of pulses, milk, wheat and rice - and vegetables like potatoes - have risen sharply.
Potato prices have gone up by 136% and pulses have risen by over 40% over last year.
19 November 2009
How to feed the world
IN 1974 Henry Kissinger, then America’s secretary of state, told the first world food conference in Rome that no child would go to bed hungry within ten years. Just over 35 years later, in the week of another United Nations food summit in Rome, 1 billion people will go to bed hungry.
18 November 2009
UN official questions world's hunger commitment
ROME — The director of a U.N. food agency questioned Wednesday how world powers could commit so much money to fighting the financial crisis and not to feeding the 1 billion hungry.
The three-day summit at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome ended with little new headway in efforts for a new strategy to help farmers in poor countries produce enough to feed their people.
14 October 2009
Global hunger worsening, warns UN
More than one billion people - a sixth of the world's population - are undernourished. 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009.
This represents more hungry people than at any time since 1970 and a worsening of the unsatisfactory trends that were present even before the economic crisis.
Empowering more women in developing countries through education and better access to jobs is a key to reducing world hunger.
13 October 2009
Tackling hunger
World Food Programme’s Annual Report 2009 highlights the difficulties faced by developing countries in battling hunger.
It mentions some of the best practices and innovative programmes that have contributed towards ending the cycle of hunger in many regions of the world.
20 February 2009
Many rural Indians 'malnourished'
40% of children under the age of three are underweight and a third of all men and women suffer from chronic energy deficiency.
Almost three quarters of India's population - some seven hundred million people - live in rural areas.
India needs to refocus its economic policies to support its rural population.
21 December 2008
2008: The year of global food crisis
Millions more of the world's most vulnerable people are facing starvation as food shortages loom and crop prices spiral ever upwards.
And for the first time in history, say experts, the impact is spreading from the developing to the developed world.
More than 73 million people in 78 countries that depend on food handouts from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are facing reduced rations this year.
In India last year, more than 25,000 farmers took their own lives, driven to despair by grain shortages and farming debts.
21 December 2008
FOOD: the global crisis deepens ...
As the world runs out of food, it is those countries with weak governments and growing urban poor which will fall first.
Inter-country tensions will also increase as policies of economic protectionism and stockpiling cause tensions.
The food crisis will create more insecurity in the world. States with poor security are the most vulnerable and if there is anger and protest over food then more governments could fall.
If we changed the way we ate, modifying what we eat, we could practically end the global food crisis, since eating more crops and much less red meat animals that are fed on these crops, would free up resources to feed the world.
What we currently do is too inefficient for the world's resources, but by choosing the optimal diet we could feed the world.
21 December 2008
The silent tsunami
Hunger now afflicts almost a billion people in 60 countries ... and kills 25,000 a day.
The global food crisis, triggered by high prices, shortages and bad weather, is deepening as the world's economy moves into recession.
Millions more people are now facing poverty, starvation, disease and death.
Children's growth is being stunted, immune systems are being destroyed and fatal diseases like diarrhoea, measles and malaria are spreading.
25 November 2008
Ignoring India's 'republic of hunger'
India State Hunger Index (ISHI) this year found that Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger in India, comparable to Chad and Ethiopia.
Even federal health surveys show that 60% of children under the age of six in the state are malnourished - more than 12% of these severely so.
With farm incomes stagnating because of soaring prices for fertiliser and seed -combined with lower prices for crops - there is less money to buy food. Most families here earn less than 1,000 rupees ($22) a month.
10 June 2008
Malnutrition getting worse in India
India has some of the highest rates of child malnutrition and mortality in under-fives in the world and Madhya Pradesh state has the highest levels in India.
There are around 10 million children in the state. A decade ago 55% were malnourished. Two years ago the government's own National Family Health Survey put the figure for Madhya Pradesh at around 60%.
Madhya Pradesh is trying hard to tackle the problem of malnutrition, but it is getting worse, not better.
Corruption and inefficiency hamper the system. Some Anganwadi workers skim off food to sell. Others refuse to give food to lower-caste children. Many simply do not turn up as they are not paid much for the job. Add to that high food prices and the poorest are sliding into hunger.
13 May, 2008
Food warning for Indian children
More than 1.5m children in India are at risk of becoming malnourished because of rising global food prices, the UN children's charity, UNICEF, says.
India has the worst indicators of child malnutrition in South Asia: 48% of under fives in India are stunted, compared to 43% in Bangladesh and 37% in Pakistan.
Meanwhile 30% of babies in India are born underweight, compared to 22% in Bangladesh and 19% in Pakistan.
UNICEF calculates that 40% of all underweight babies in the world are Indian.
13 May, 2008
India suffers epidemic of stunted kids
Malnutrition rates among Indian children are among the world's highest and cause stunted growth in about half of children under five years.
These children account for one-third of the global population of stunted children.
Undernourished children are more likely to become short adults and to give birth to smaller babies.
Stunting in the first two years leads to irreversible damage into adult life.
13 May, 2008
Inflation forcing 100 million more towards malnutrition: UNICEF
The price of rice has more than doubled in the last year, while wheat has increased over 130 per cent. For every percentage point that the price of staple foods increases, the number of people who become 'food-insecure' increases by 16 million.
At the current rate, we can project that 1.2 billion people would become chronically hungry by 2025.
Authorities at the UNICEF India office here said the rise in food prices was a major crisis, given the huge population and the existing level of malnutrition in India.
8 May 2008
India children's health 'ignored'
More than half of Indian children under the age of five do not get the health care they need, according to a report by Save the Children.
It ranks India alongside Ghana when it comes to providing basic health care to its children under five years of age.
Although India has cut child its mortality rate by 34% since 1990, Indian girls are 61% more likely than boys to die between the ages of one and five.
