global food

Despite a stagnant global economy, the world made progress against hunger, says the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in an annual report: "For the first time in modern history, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell below 10 percent of the global population and the global rate of under-nutrition was expected to fall below 11 percent." IFPRI singled out Bangladesh and Ethiopia for halving hunger rates since the 1990s.

Sharply higher prices for cheese, butter and sugar pushed up the FAO Food Price Index by 0.7 percent, continuing an unbroken rise from July. The index, which tracks prices for five groups of foods, has been on the rise throughout this year and is now 9 percent higher than one year ago.

An annual report on global agriculture says productivity growth is stagnating in low-income countries at 1.3 percent, far below the 1.75-percent increase needed yearly to assure enough food and fiber for a world population forecast to be 9.7 billion in 2050. The Global Harvest Initiative, a coalition of agribusinesses and consulting groups, says the productivity rate is growing at 1.73 percent worldwide currently, the third year in a row that it has run below the target.

Global per-capita fish consumption surged beyond 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in 2014, thanks to the booming aquaculture industry in China and elsewhere, according to a report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture organization.

The world is facing a 70-percent “crop gap” between the calories available in 2006 and the expected caloric demand in 2050, says a report out by the World Resources Institute (WRI).

"Extreme poverty, child mortality, and hunger all fell by around half between 1990 and 2015," thanks to the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations in 2000, says the International Food Policy Research Institute in its 2016 Global Food Policy Report.