Almost one in nine humans suffered from chronic undernourishment in 2019, a proportion that is expected to worsen due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an annual UN report released on Monday. According to the latest estimates, hunger last year affected around 690 million people, or 8.9% of the world's population, says a report by the Food and Food Organization of the United Nations. 'agriculture (FAO), produced with the assistance of the International Fund for the Development of Agriculture, UNICEF, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization. 10 million more people than in 2018 and 60 million more than in 2014.
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"If the trend continues, it is estimated that by 2030, this number will exceed 840 million people. This clearly means that the goal (to eradicate hunger by 2030, established by the UN in 2015, editor's note) is not on track, "said Thibault Meilland, policy analyst at FAO.
The Covid 19 pandemic, an aggravating factor
And that was without taking into account the health and economic shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused cascading loss of income, increased food prices, disrupted supply chains ... According to the report, the global recession due to the new coronavirus is likely to push to hunger between 83 and 132 million additional people. "These are still relatively conservative assumptions, the situation is evolving," notes Thibault Meilland.
The estimate of undernourishment in the world is much lower than in previous editions: last year's report mentioned more than 820 million hungry people. But the figures cannot be compared: the integration of newly accessible data - in particular from China's household surveys - has led to the revision of all estimates since 2000. "It is not not a drop (in the number of people suffering from undernourishment), it is a revision. Everything has been recalculated on the basis of these new figures ", insists Thibault Meilland.
"As China represents a fifth of the world's population, this update has important consequences for the global figures," points out the FAO analyst. "Even if the overall figure is lower," the observation of an increase in undernourishment since 2014 "is confirmed," he adds.
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The cost of poor nutrition
Among the areas for improvement, the prevalence of stunting among five-year-olds fell by a third between 2000 and 2019, with around 21% of children affected worldwide today. More than 90% of them live in Asia or Africa. Beyond undernutrition, the report points out that a growing number of people "have had to reduce the quantity and quality of the food they eat ". Two billion people thus suffer from "food insecurity", that is to say that they do not regularly have access to nutritious food in sufficient quality and quantity, it is indicated.
Even more (3 billion) do not have the means to afford a diet considered to be balanced, with in particular sufficient intakes of fruits and vegetables. "On average, a healthy diet costs five times more than a diet that only meets energy needs with basic starchy foods," reports Thibault Meilland. Corollary: obesity is increasing both in adults and in children.
Specialized UN agencies estimate that if food consumption patterns do not change, their impact on direct healthcare costs and lost economic productivity should reach 1.3 trillion dollars (1.144 bn EUR at current prices) per year. by 2030.