Overview
- Nearly 850 million people in 77 lower-income countries
are food insecure, and the situation could grow
worse in the poorest countries.
- Food
insecurity can be either temporary or chronic.
The broader reasons for it are many: war, poverty,
population growth, environmental degradation,
limited agricultural technology, ineffective policies,
and disease.
- Many low-income countries have difficulty producing
enough food and are thus food-insecure on a national
level. More common is inequality of food consumption
within countries—the result of uneven purchasing
power.
- Some countries—due in part to policy changes
and stronger economic growth—have significantly
improved their food security situation since the
1996 World Food Summit. This includes several lower
income countries in Asia and Latin America. Sub-Saharan
Africa, however, has seen little progress, and prospects
for improvement are not strong.
- The number of food-insecure people in 77 lower-income developing countries will decrease about
1 percent from 2010 to 852 million in 2011.
ERS provides research, analysis, and information on food security, including factors affecting food production and ability to import food, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Commonwealth of Independent States to decisionmakers in the United States and throughout the world.
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