The Food Security Crisis

Friends, on Wednesday, at the start of the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, we took a look at what the G8 is and where it came from. Now, at the end of the summit, G8 leaders have called for the completion of long-stalled world trade talks and promised $20 billion in aid over the next three years to stimulate food production in poor countries.

Why the emphasis on food security, on ensuring that developing countries have adequate access to food supplies? Because from South America to Africa to Asia, steep food price increases over the last few years are threatening to undo decades of anti-poverty efforts and plunge tens of millions of people into hunger and malnutrition.

Prices for staples like wheat, rice, and corn have come down a bit this year. But, according to the UN's World Food Program (WFP), which fights hunger worldwide, they are still, on average, 24 percent higher in real terms than they were in 2006 and 33 percent higher than they were in 2005. So let's try to understand the problem now, by the numbers.

Keys to Understanding

60 percent - The amount of income that poor consumers spend on food, according to the WFP. With little to no discretionary income, even slight increases in food prices hit poor people hard. When prices go up, they must go without.

1 billion – The number of people worldwide going hungry today. Originally, experts at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicted that about 915 million people would go hungry this year. But the global economic crisis has impoverished tens of millions more.

Fatal Results

6 seconds - The amount of time that ticks away before another child dies because of hunger and related causes, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). In fact, malnutrition plays a role in half of all under-five child deaths worldwide.

25,000 - The number of people on Earth, children and adults, who will starve to death today, according to the UN FAO. That's more than 9 million people each year, more than the entire population of Sweden.

Wasted Potential

2 billion – The number of people worldwide who suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). When poor diet leads to inadequate levels of iron, iodine, vitamin A, zinc, and other nutrients, human development suffers. UNICEF reports that 18 million babies a year are born with some form of mental impairment because of iodine deficiency alone.

$3 – What it costs to provide vitamin A, zinc, iron, and iodine supplements to one person for an entire year, according to UNICEF. The iodine supplement costs 5 cents.