Food Prospects and Potential Imports of Low-income Countries in the Twenty-first Century

Projections by FAO on the number of food-insecure people paint a similarly mixed picture.3 FAO projects that 680 million people, 12 per cent of the developing world's population, could be food-insecure in 2010, down from 840 million in 1990-92 [FAO 1996aJ. Food insecurity is expected to diminish rapidly in East Asia and to a lesser extent in South Asia and Latin America, but it could accelerate substantially in sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia and North Africa. SubSaharan Africa and South Asia, home to a projected 70 per cent of the world's food-insecure people in 2010, will be the locus of hunger in the developing world. In fact, sub-Saharan Africa's share of the world's food-insecure population is projected to almost quadruple between 1969-71 and 2010 from 11 to 39 per cent [ibid.]' By 2010, every third person in sub-Saharan Africa is likely to be food-insecure, compared with every eighth person in South Asia and every twentieth person in East Asia. These disturbing figures reflect widespread poverty and poor health.