UK Edition
One in nine going hungry globally as climate change increases food insecurity
The number of people going hungry has increased for the third consecutive year, a major report reveals.
Figures show 821 million people – or one in nine – were undernourished in 2017, as climate extremes have contributed to global food insecurity. Women, babies and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the worsening trend, which raises concerns that the goal of eradicating hunger by 2030 will not be met.
The annual State of Food Insecurity and Nutrition report, published on Tuesday by five United Nations agencies, found that while conflict and economic downturns exacerbated problems in some countries, climate-related food insecurity was taking place across the world. Hunger has consequently returned to levels from almost a decade ago.
“It is an urgent wake-up call on how we must act more boldly now to turn the situation around,” said Frances Kennedy, a spokesman for the World Food Programme, a co-publisher of the report.
“We had been making progress in curbing hunger and malnutrition, but those gains made are being eroded by climate variability and exposure to more complex, frequent and intense climate extremes,” she said.
Production of crops including maize, wheat and rice has already been disrupted by changes in climate in tropical and temperate regions, and this is expected to worsen unless resilience to climate change is improved.
But it is low and middle income countries, where agricultural systems are most sensitive to rainfall, temperature variability and severe drought, which will see the highest prevalence of hunger.
“The good news is that we have the knowledge, tools and experience to address climate problems,” said Marco Sanchez Cantillo, deputy director of the Agricultural Development Economic Division of the FAO and co-director of the publication.
“It will be a challenge to collaborate with the global community, governments and farmers, but if we do not take adequate action then we are going to find it very hard to adapt to climate change.”
In particular, the situation is worsening in South America and most regions of Africa, while Asia has seen a declining rate of undernourishment in recent years.
The report also highlighted the difficulties in tackling different forms of malnutrition at once. One in eight adults in the world are obese, with the greatest increase in North America but increases also taking place in Africa and Asia.
“It may seem paradoxical, but there are many forms of malnutrition which coexist, sometimes in the same country, for a number of reasons. Intermittent access to food, the price of fresh, nutritious food, metabolic changes, and the impact of stress eating all contribute to obesity”, said Mr Sanchez Cantillo. “This is very tricky for policy makers to address.”
Meanwhile, there’s been poor progress in tackling child stunting, with 151 million children under five too short for their weight due to malnutrition.
“Children are deprived of their potential physically, but also their ability to develop cognitively, by hunger”, said Chika Hayashi, Unicef senior statistics specialist.
“If you look at low levels of stunting in high income countries, this issue should be avoidable. It is everyone’s responsibility to step up policies to reduce and mitigate the impact of climate change and ensure safety nets are in place to reduce hunger and the impacts.”
Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security