Several countries are at risk of hunger.
This is not because there is food shortage but due to reduction in purchasing power to buy food. Policy director for the Institute for Food and Development Policy Anuradha Mittal made this contention in a paper presented at the Conference on People's Response to the Food Security Crisis in Southeast Asia. Presenting her paper on Freedom to Trade vs Freedom from Hunger, Mittal said trade liberalisation, including food trade, in the last 20 years had changed the nature of food production and distribution. The two-day conference is organised by Southeast Asia Food Security and Fair Trade Council and the Education and Research Association For Consumers. What used to be a community effort is now a highly profitable commercial agri-business enterprise comprising 15 per cent of all world trade exports.