CIAO DATE: 07/2010
April 2010
Center for Strategic and International Studies
In 2008, a complex combination of changes in demographics, food demand, and poor weather led to skyrocketing food prices around the world,1 prompting riots in dozens of countries, from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso. While prices have stabilized in developed countries, high prices in the rest of the world continue to limit both access to, and availability of, staple food items. The number of people living with chronic hunger has jumped to more than 1 billion people—one sixth of the world’s population2—and those trends show no signs of reversal: between 2007 and 2008, the number of people suffering from chronic hunger in the developing world increased by 80 million. In 2009, as many as 100 million additional people were pushed into a state of food insecurity.3 Continued high food prices and a global recession further exacerbate the rising numbers of food insecure people. Hunger has emerged as perhaps the most endangered Millennium Development Goal.
Resource link: Cultivating Global Food Security: A Strategy for U.S. Leadership on Productivity, Agricultural Research, and Trade [PDF] - 849K