As the global economic crisis deepens, hunger and malnutrition are likely to increase. Reduced incomes and higher unemployment mean the purchasing power of the poor diminishes. Already, more and more people are finding food is out of reach.
| Download the Food Crisis Fact Sheet | View the Food Crisis Timeline |
PerspectivesWhat do experts think about the global food crisis and the economic crisis that is intersecting with it? Here are four perspectives: Josette Sheeran
Howard Buffett
Howard G. Buffett, WFP Ambassador against Hunger, sees the global financial crisis as the worst possible scenario for the world's poor and hungry. Read interview Alex Evans
How can we achieve global food security in the 21st century? Alex Evans, a leading expert on international affairs at New York University, has one answer. Dr Peter Timmer
Financial speculation in food commodities is the new element that makes the latest food crisis different, says an economic historian with four decades of experience in analysing prices.
|
Impact on the groundWhat is the effect of higher prices and financial turmoil on the world's poorest people? Here are some viewpoints from around the world: Ghana: Selling Off Livelihoods
WFP Food Monitor Prosper Dakurah describes how one woman at a market in Ghana tried to deal with high food prices – by selling her potential livelihood. Senegal: "We have to skip meals"
Coumba Ba began to feel the effects of higher food prices in 2007, following a bad harvest. Today, her family must often skip a meal. When all else fails, they must sell a goat. Tajikistan: No Harvest, No Food, No School
Guatemala: Cash From Abroad Dwindles
|
Research by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in the UK shows people in poor communities of five low-income countries are eating less frequently and are withdrawing children from school as they begin to feel the direct impacts of the financial crisis.
The research, focusing on Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Jamaica and Zambia, is part one of a set of 10 studies by IDS exploring the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries. The series of In Focus Policy Briefings were published ahead of the G20 meeting in London on April 2.
Leaders brainstorm
The world produces millions of metric tons of wheat, maize, rice and sorghum. But those grains are not always where they need to be when markets get tight as they did during last year’s high-food-price crisis. That's why leaders from around the world were in St. Petersburg on 6 and 7 June. Read more
The financial crisis is hitting the world’s hungry hard because their budget for food is shrinking, says WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran. 
"Our family relies on assistance from relatives. Most of the days we have only one meal," says one woman whose family has been hit by severe financial woes. WFP assistance has arrived in January. 
Eighteen months ago Juan Coj Soc’s son left his poverty-stricken community in Guatemala and found work in California. For a time he sent money home regularly and all seemed well. Then the economic crisis started to bite...