One-Quarter of World Population Suffering from Malnutrition and Hunger

The number of people worldwide suffering from lack of access to adequate food has reached two billion. This comes at a time when food production has increased significantly. Millions of people die from hunger every year.

On the eve of World Food Day, a new report has been released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The statistics presented in this report were provided to media outlets by the humanitarian organization FIAN.

On Thursday, October 18 (October 10), the German Catholic news agency republished the data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization regarding the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition worldwide.

According to a report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the number of people deprived of access to adequate food and proper nutrition has increased by 317 million and reached two billion.

Thus, one-quarter of the world’s total population lacks access to adequate food. This same statistic indicates that between 9 to 36 million people die annually worldwide due to hunger and malnutrition.

Global Warming and War

Philipp Mimkes, head of the German branch of the humanitarian organization FIAN, considers people’s lack of access to adequate food a political bankruptcy of governments.

In his view, given the increase and accumulation of food products in the world, people’s suffering from lack of access to adequate food is in no way acceptable.

Philipp Mimkes has pointed to the increase in agricultural production in South America and says that since 2014, the number of people suffering from malnutrition and hunger in that region has increased by 67 percent and reached 131 million.

He has criticized the allocation of agricultural lands in South America to the production of soy and sugar cane, and believes that such action has fueled the nutritional crisis on that continent.

Moreover, this report identifies social injustice, discrimination, and unjust trade structures as the main causes of the hunger crisis.

Global warming, as well as military confrontations and local wars, are among the factors that have made access to food difficult for one-quarter of the world’s population and have fueled the hunger crisis.

It should be noted that World Food Day is observed on October 16.

Source: DW