A coalition of United Nations food agencies asked Monday for $4 trillion to solve hunger.
The request came from a meeting taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization and two others.
The organizations warned that without eliminating hunger there will be 650 million persons who are hungry by 2030.
The organizations are seeking $257 billion a year for 15 years to provide access to food for the hungry and to develop infrastructure. A summary said that this is a relatively small price to pay to end chronic hunger. By comparison, the U.S. national debt is $18 trillion.
The money amounts to $160 a year or $1.25 a day for each hungry person, said the organizations. In addition to the Food and Agricultural Organization, they are the U.N. World Food Program and the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The U.N. organizations said that public investments would be needed to obtain this much money. The investments would go to rural infrastructure, transportation, health and education, the announcement said. Also proposed are lines of credit and methods to reduce loss and waste of harvests and labor legislations.
The first amounts of money would go to that was called social protection, money transfers to eliminate hunger and improve nutrition as well as to attack what the organizations called hidden hunger, diets that lack vitamins, iron and other minerals.