Desertification threatens 27 million hectares of irrigated land. In short, we are losing valuable land for food production at an unprecedented rate. Yet, we have no global shortage of food, despite having reached a global population of six billion. Hunger is a question of distribution and inequity not a lack of food. Contamination and bad quality food are causing food-borne disease to increase at an alarming rate, making hundreds of millions of people sick every year.
Nutrition is a key element in any strategy to reduce the global burden of disease.
Hunger, malnutrition, obesity and unsafe food all cause disease, and better nutrition will translate into large improvements in health among all of us, irrespective of our wealth and home country. Hunger and malnutrition, however, remain amongst the most devastating problems facing the majority of the world s poor and needy, and continue to dominate the health of the world s poorest nations. And as we speak, several million people on Africa s Horn are yet again in the grips of a major famine. Hunger remains a continuing affront to the recognized fundamental human right to adequate food and nutrition, and freedom from hunger and malnutrition - particularly in a world that has both the resources and knowledge to end this catastrophe. The tragic consequences of malnutrition include death, disability, stunted mental and physical growth and as a result, retarded development.