UN General Assembly
2008

community gathered in Rome to address the global 35 08-53129 food crisis, and in 1996, again in Rome, we dedicated ourselves at the World Food Summit to eliminating hunger and malnutrition and to achieving sustainable food security for all. We adopted seven commitments towards that end. It was estimated in 1974 that, if action was not taken, there could be 680 million hungry people in the world in 2010. The latest figure shows that, at present, 850 million people face hunger on a daily basis. Clearly, we have failed to take heed of the warnings made 34 years ago. Can we now ask what happened to those resolutions that we made? Liberalization has fundamentally changed the market structure for food and energy sources. Those changes have allowed for greater international speculation. A clear evidence of speculation on the price of food can be found in the dramatic rise in prices. An increase of close to 40 per cent has been recorded within a six-month period, in some cases. In view of the volatility of food prices, Malaysia strongly