Director-General of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf recently held a press conference for the new report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008" and delivered the devastating news that 40 million more people around the world experienced chronic hunger as a result of high food prices this year. The rise makes the Millennium Development Goal of halving global hunger by 2015 look increasingly unlikely.

Climate change's effect on natural disasters is projected to increase poverty and hunger, too, one of many discussion points at the UN's annual international climate change conference in Poznan, Poland this week. In fact, one UN agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), just embarked on a campaign to raise awareness of the relationship between climate change and humanitarian issues like hunger and malnutrition.

The outlook is, so far: unfortunately dismal.  Recent reports outline in stark terms the relationship between climate change, more severe and frequent natural disasters, and their effects on current and future hunger should the world not solve its food supply, distribution, and insecurity problems.

In Zimbabwe, for instance, millions of people are at risk of starvation since the World Food Programme has had to cut rations for lack of funds. At the same time, Zimbabwe is experiencing one of the biggest cholera epidemics in recent history. Political unrest and the financial collapse both contribute to this region's food insecurity, but this year's drought isn't helping:

"Drought this year drastically increased Zimbabwe's food deficit. The rains have been good so far this season, but the country's economic collapse means the area planted with grain is well below what is needed to feed the population. The WFP says it needs an extra $100m (£68m) to cover the shortfall up to March 2009." - The Independent

Over in Asia-Pacific, country leaders are facing the need to set national policies to prepare for the effects of even more extreme weather.  They met recently to set up local early warning systems and other risk reduction strategies.

"Climate projections for the Pacific island countries are bleak and indicate reduced food security, especially for households," said Alexander Mueller, FAO assistant director-general.

'It is critical to build resilience of food systems to avoid enormous future economic losses in agriculture, fisheries and forestry," he warned. "Countries will have to assess how vulnerable their food systems are and how they can adapt agriculture, forestry and fisheries to future climate-related disasters. There is a need to act urgently." - Environment News Service

Yet while the Asia-Pacific ministers discuss national policy and representatives between poor countries and richer industrialized ones disagree over how to reach a shared vision at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, there's still the basic need simply to feed the people who face food insecurity or starvation right now and increase the food supplies in their regions.

Pediatrician Patricia Wolff, for example, heads up a nonprofit that fights childhood malnutrition in Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. Meds & Food for Kids makes a high-energy peanut butter product with a long shelf life called Medika Mamba, and it's saving the lives of children all over the impoverished island.  According to CNN:

"[Wolff] says the practice of big foreign aid agencies shipping in food to poor countries like Haiti needs to be modified. Food has become too expensive to produce, ship and store, she says.

"You can't count on big aid agencies showing up to save everybody," she says. "Not everybody can do it, and when they do it, it's not soon enough and not long enough."

She suggests that more groups teach local farmers in poor places how to produce their own crops. In Haiti, for example, her group employs 22 Haitians who make Medika Mamba and teaches other farmers how to grow crops for the mixture.

"Instead of throwing fish in the crowd, we should be teaching people how to fish," she says." - CNN

Image Credit: Eric Bauchemin

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