Many people still do not get anything like enough to eat – while others eat far too much.1,2
In 1997-99 (the most recent figures) there were:
815 million undernourished (without enough food to meet their daily energy requirements) people in the world
777 million of them in the developing nations
27 million in ‘transition’ countries
11 million in industrialized countries
Since the mid-1960s there has been a dramatic cut in the number of undernourished people, largely due to huge reductions in poverty in China. Remove China from the picture and the number of undernourished people in the other
developing countries actually increased by almost 40 million
The number of hungry people in developing countries is expected to decline from 777 million today to about 440 million in 2030 – though the target of the 1996 World Food Summit to halve the number of hungry people by 2015 will not be met
World population is now 6 billion and is projected to grow to 8.3 billion by 2030. This would require a 40-45% increase in food production. But, overall, the rate of growth of both population and demand for food is expected to slow.
Farming the land provides the livelihood of a large proportion of the world’s people.5
Agriculture provides the main source of income for some 2.5 billion people
96% of the world’s farmers live in developing countries
Despite growing urbanization, 2/3 of the world’s poor live in rural areas
In the rural areas of the developing world, close to 900 million people live on less than $1 a day. The agricultural sector is crucial for their survival
The consolidation or ‘vertical integration’ of pesticide, seed and biotechnology corporations – known as ‘Life Science’ companies – is delivering up control over large parts of the human food chain to a small number of powerful corporations.
Just four companies – based in the US and linked in two alliances (Cargill/Monsanto and Novartis/ADM) – control over 80% of the world seed market and 75% of the world agrochemical market2
6 corporations handle about 85% of world trade in grain; 15 control between 85% and 90% of world coffee sales11
Genetic resources are the building blocks of food security. Yet we now rely on less than 30 crop varieties for 80% of the world’s food supply.12
About 75% of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost since 1900
About 30% of livestock breeds are close to extinction, and at least one breed of traditional livestock dies out every week
Mexico has lost 80% of its varieties of corn since the 1930s
China lost over 90% of wheat and rice varieties between the 1950s
and the 1970s
Additional research by Angela Saini
1 Shetty and James Body Mass Index – A Measure of Chronic Energy Deficiency in Adults, Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen.
2 World Agriculture 2030: Main Findings, Food and Agriculture Organization.
3 C James, ‘Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops: 2001’, ISAAA Briefs No. 24 Preview, Ithaca, New York. ISAAA is the source of GM statistics cited in this update unless otherwise noted.
4 Monsanto website, using ISAAA’s statistic for global GM crop area.
5 Boxing Match in Agricultural Trade, Oxfam Briefing Paper 32.
6 FAO Economic and Social Department, Commodities and Trade Division, United States Department of Agriculture.
7 ED Ongley, Control of water pollution from agriculture, FAO irrigation and drainage paper 55, 1996.
8 Reducing your risk: a UK guide to avoiding hormone disruptors, WWF.
9 Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-Making, The Report of the World Commission on Dams, November 2000.
10 International Trade Centre report Organic Agriculture Worldwide 2002.
11 John Madely, Big Business, Poor Peoples, Zed Books, 1999.
12 http://www.primalseeds.org Food and Agriculture Organization.