Ten thousand empty plates were displayed at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Saturday morning in an event to mark World Food Day. French non-governmental organisation Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) organised the event, dubbed the Banquet Against Hunger, in coordination with the European Union, to draw the public's attention to starvation and hunger worldwide. According to Francois Danel, General Director of Action Contre la Faim, "ten-thousand...

Global hunger is rising rapidly due to sharp spikes in food commodity prices. The combination of global food crisis and economic recession pushed the number of hungry people beyond the one billion mark, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's Director-General Jacques Diouf told the 36th session of the Inter-governmental Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in Rome on Wednesday. The session has been timed with the World Food Day on Saturday. Agricultural scientist...

One billion people in the world were undernourished in 2009, according to a new report. The 2010 Global Hunger Index shows that child malnutrition is the biggest cause of hunger worldwide, accounting for almost half of those affected. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia were shown to have the highest levels of hunger. The report's authors called on nations to tackle child malnutrition in order to reduce global hunger. The Global Hunger Index...

A recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, provides a damning indictment of the role of speculation in food commodities in fuelling the global food crisis. The report – 'Food Commodities Speculation and Food Price Crisis – was released on the eve of an emergency meeting of the UN-FAO on the instability in agricultural markets. The global food crisis in 2007-08 led to...

Natural disasters, conflict and weak institutions have thrust 22 countries into recurring food crises and high prevalence of hunger, two United Nations agencies said today in a report on food insecurity around the world, calling for longer-term solutions to help those States recover their productive capacity. Chronic hunger and food insecurity is the most common characteristic of a protracted crisis, according to the report, the “State of Food Insecurity in the...