In recent years, the number of people experiencing acute hunger has been persistently high. And 2018 was no exception. Some 113 million people in 53 countries were acutely hungry last year. That is 113 million girls, boys, men and women, old and young, who were unable to access enough food and required humanitarian assistance to meet their most basic needs. For FAO, building resilient agriculture-based livelihoods and food systems is at the core of efforts to fight acute hunger and avert food crises. We know how critical humanitarian assistance is. At the same time, it is clear that humanitarian assistance on its own is not enough to win the battle against acute hunger. That is why FAO’s humanitarian work is firmly embedded within a foundation of resilience building. And this was really demonstrated in 2018, when the breadth of our work extended from immediate humanitarian response to protect lives and livelihoods in some of the most complex contexts in the world, including South Sudan and Yemen, to addressing the vulnerability of pastoral populations and facilitating the development of livestock feed balances in the Horn of Africa, to supporting disaster risk reduction efforts from Myanmar to Central America. Publications such as this offer us an opportunity to reflect on some of our achievements over the past year and identify how we can do better in the next. It is not intended as an exhaustive list of the work done under FAO’s strategic programme on resilience, but rather a snapshot to demonstrate what we can achieve and how much more this to be done.
This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies in 54 countries, including the 38 OECD countries, the five non-OECD EU Member States, and 11 emerging economies. This year’s report focuses on policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and analyses the implications of agricultural support policies for the performance of food systems.
"Result of a joint project meeting between UNU-WIDER and the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), with research contributions from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
The persistence of an unacceptably high level of hunger and malnutrition worldwide presents a serious challenge to the world on the threshold of the third millenium. Although enough food is produced to feed mankind, about 840 million people go hungry; among them are 185 million pre-school children that are severely underweight for their age. Since an additional 80 million people have to be fed each year, achieving food security is a central global challenge, if not the most important development issue. The aim of the reader is to analyze actual problems in the field of food security and nutrition and to discuss present and future strategies to overcome hunger. Food security is a complex subject. In order to master this complexity, we distinguish between four dimensions of analyses: Theoretical-analytical, empirical-descriptive, normative-political, institutional. (Series: Spektrum. Berliner Reihe zu Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik in Entwicklungsländern/Berlin Series on Society, Economy and Politics in Developing Countries - Vol. 50)
Latin America and the Caribbean managed to reduce the number of undernourished by 20 million compared to the year 2000. However, 2018 marks the fourth consecutive year in which hunger shows a continuous increases. Moderate or severe food insecurity in Latin America increased considerably. This increase caused more than 32 million people to join the almost 155 million who lived in food insecurity in the Region in 2014-2016. The Region has shown significant progress in reducing child malnutrition and it is significantly distant and below the global prevalence of malnutrition in girls and boys. However, malnutrition due to excessive weight in the Region is one of the highest in the world and it continues to increase. This year, the Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean focuses on food environments and describes some of the main policies that the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are developing to face the different forms of malnutrition.
The Role of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Human Nutrition is a component of Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Human health and wellbeing depend strongly on production, quality, and availability of food. Agriculture, or cultivation of the soil, harvesting crops, and raising livestock, which are the main sources of food, has no single origin. At different times and in numerous places, many plants and animals have been domesticated to provide food for humankind. Fishing, like farming, is a form of primary food production. Through food gathering, primitive humans first obtained fish and other aquatic products in the shallow waters of lakes and along the seashore, in areas with ebb tides, and in small streams. The breadth and complexity of the subject matter presented here is vast. This volume traces the extraordinary history of human colonization of the habitable world and is a chronicle of humankind’s early communion with the underlying realities of the earth’s physical environment, the eventual destruction of this harmonious relationship, and efforts to repair the damage. To make it easier for the reader the volume is divided into 7 sections Food and agriculture and the use of natural resources examines the relationship between food production and the resource base and demonstrate how humans have adapted and exploited Nature to feed the burgeoning populations of humans and their domestic animals. History of forestry from ancient times to the present day is analyzed and shows the linkage between forest clearance for agriculture and the rise of human populations, and current global environmental issues. History of Fishing is a saga explained that spans the full range from traditional fishing for subsistence through to the evolution of modern factory fishing fleets Impact of global change on agriculture outlines the impact of climate change, human demographic trends and the sustainability issues that arise. Economics and policy of food production analyzes the global trade in foodstuffs and the regional specializations and land use complexities. Fundamentals of human health and nutrition explains the complexities of providing a balanced and safe diet for humans throughout their life cycle from birth to old age. It explores some of the linkages between human health and the quality and quantity of food provided. Human nutrition: an overview provides, a wide ranging summary of the issues and imperatives associated with providing humans with food of a quality and standard that will ensure healthy lives. In the history of human development from the time of the earliest agricultural activities humans have cleared the natural forests and woodlands to obtain building materials and fuel wood, and to provide lands for domestic animals and crops. It is this aspect that is the main focus of the volume. The authors in this volume have analyzed and reviewed the interactions between the utilization of natural resources and human nutrition. Much attention focuses on the specific contribution by agriculture (including livestock husbandry), forestry and fisheries in meeting human needs. This synoptic overview assesses the pattern of past change in the relationship between humans and the resource base on which their lives depend. Lessons learned, or still to be learned, are teased out and elaborated. The vast breadth of the subject matter covered in this volume has meant that the work has benefited from the input of many individual contributors from vastly different parts of the globe. I am grateful to the contributors and reviewers for their time and effort and the exchange of ideas and the learning experience that I obtained by working with such a diverse and learned group. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the vast "invisible college" of colleagues whose publications that have shed light on some of the most pertinent problems facing humankind today. These four volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.
