Paris (AFP)

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 affected about 690 million people last year, 8.9% of the world's population, says a report by the Food and Food Organization of the United Nations. agriculture (FAO), written 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.

"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, a policy analyst at FAO.

And that was without counting 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 drive hunger between 83 and 132 million more people.

"These are still relatively conservative assumptions, the situation is evolving," notes 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 surveys carried out by China among households in the country - has led to the revision of all estimates since 2000.

"This is 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 Mr. 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.

- The cost of malnutrition -

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. Over 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," says 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 billion euros) per year d '' by 2030.

In separate statements, several NGOs responded by urging the authorities to review the world food system.

"If we produce enough to feed 9 billion people to date, this diet is less and less diversified, less and less healthy, and less and less accessible for the poor", deplores the CCFD-Terre united.

"Billions of people are paying the price for the failure of policies carried out for decades," said Hélène Botreau, advocacy officer at Oxfam France.

For the president of Action Against Hunger France, Pierre Micheletti, "it becomes imperative to transform our food systems to make them sustainable, resilient and fair, and to end hunger".

© 2020 AFP