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The extent and depth of food insecurity in the developing world at the turn of a new century and millennium remains unconscionable
. About 800 million people — one-sixth of the developing world’s population — do not have access to sufficient food to lead healthy, productive lives. Around 280 million of these food-insecure people live in South Asia; 240 million in East Asia; 180 million in Sub-Saharan Africa; and the rest in Latin America, Middle East and North Africa.
Although progress is being made in tackling food insecurity, it is slow. And in sub-Saharan Africa the number of food-insecure people has actually doubled since 1969–71. According to recent projections from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Food Summit goal of halving the number of food-insecure people from 800 million in 1995 to 400 million by 2015 will not be achieved until 2030.
This chapter looks at how the policy choices and investment decisions made will profoundly influence the number and location of food-insecure people in the future
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A revolution is taking place in global agriculture that has profound implications for human health, livelihoods and the environment
. Population growth, urbanisation and income growth in developing countries are fueling a massive increase in demand for food of animal origin. These changes in the diets of billions of people could significantly improve the well-being of many rural poor. Governments and industry must prepare for this continuing revolution with long-run policies and investments that will satisfy consumer demand, improve nutrition, direct income growth opportunities to those who need them most and alleviate environmental and public health stress
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This first in a series of regional conferences on this subject brought together more than fifty agricultural scientists and policymakers from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and from international agricultural research centres and the Asian Development Bank to discuss how best to promote "sustainable agricultural intensification" - natural resource management that safeguards productivity of the natural resource base while meeting economic growth and poverty alleviation objectives
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What are the ingredients for success in bringing natural resource management into the set of objectives for policymakers and researchers? Conference participants brought a range of country experiences and policy and research perspectives - different economic development paths; different government roles in shaping those strategies; different institutions and mechanisms for government planning; different population densities, country sizes, natural resource richness, and level of food security - to the table for four days in grappling with this question. In the process of taking into consideration actors other than the government, levels other than the national, and mechanisms through which effective institutional links can be forged, the participants did not always reach consensus. Their debate, however, brought to light major issues to be researched and resolved along the way to "sustainable intensification."
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