The World Food Programme chief has lamented the severity of world hunger and said her biggest dream is to see no child goes hungry. Worldwide, 1.02 billion people or one in six of the world

The nutrition levels of displaced children under 5 years of age living in welfare villages in the North have significantly improved since their arrival in the camps in May, Secretary to the Ministry of Health and Nutrition Dr. Athula Kahandaliyanage said yesterday.

Governments are at their wits

The world will have to produce 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people and as incomes rise, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization said Wednesday.

Global cereals demand for food and animal feed is expected to rise to 3 billion tonnes by 2050 and more demand may come from the biofuels industry, the FAO said in a statement.

For years, anti-poverty campaigners railed against low commodity prices, which depressed farmers' incomes in developing countries. In recent months, the world price of virtually all staples has shot up, but the activists are still not cheering. They worry that this boom (intensified by "green" subsidies for biofuel crops) may worsen poverty even more than low agricultural prices did.

Millions of impoverished Bangladeshis are barely sustaining a hand-to-mouth existence that would be wrenched from their grasp by any fresh "economic shock," according to the UN food aid agency.

Food aid is at a 20-year low despite the number of critically hungry people soaring this year to its highest level ever, the United Nations relief agency said Wednesday.

The number of hungry people will pass 1 billion this year for the first time, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) said, adding that it is facing a serious budget shortfall.

As Number Of Starving People Hits All-Time High, Food Aid Is At 20-Yr Low: UN

London: Food aid is at a 20-year low despite the number of critically hungry people soaring this year to its highest level ever, the UN relief agency said on Wednesday.

The sun somehow feels closer here, more intense, more personal. As Philip Lolua waits under a tree for a scoop of food, heat waves dance up from the desert floor, blurring the dead animal carcasses sprawled in front of him.

The world is falling far short in feeding its most critically hungry, pledging only $3.7 billion of the $6.7 billion needed to fund the World Food Program for 2009, the head of the United Nations relief agency said on Wednesday.