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  • Title: UN food summit tries to focus world attention on hunger.
    Author: Scommegna P.
    Journal: Popul Today; 1996 Nov; 24(11):1-2. PubMed ID: 12291741.
    Abstract:
    This article discusses the November 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, women's role as food producers, overconsumption, and justification for a world conference focus. The Summit was planned by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and is to focus on how to provide people with food security and how to keep pace with growing needs without causing environmental damage. The Summit takes place during a time when 841 million of the world population are chronically undernourished, of which 200 million are children. Millions more suffer from contaminated food and water, micronutrient deficiencies, and blindness due to lack of vitamin A. Agricultural production in 88 countries is deficient. These countries cannot produce enough food to feed their populations an adequate diet and cannot afford to import needed food. These countries include China, India, and most of sub-Saharan Africa. World grain stocks have dropped to low levels, export prices for cereals have risen, and the world fish harvest has leveled off. Over the next 50 years the world must raise food for about 4 billion more people with a limited supply of land and uneven water resources. African countries must increase food production by 300%, Latin America by 80%, Asia by 69%, and North America by 30%. The former strategy of increasing yields with fertilizers is no longer effective and there is no other alternative. In developing countries women are the main producers of food for the family. Future policies must recognize women's role in food production. Poverty would decrease and food supplies increase if poor women were given access to credit and technical advice, education and health care, and a place in the center of the world agenda for increasing food productivity. The global food system is inequitably concentrated among few, and the food trade is increasingly controlled by multinationals. Overconsumption is as serious a problem as overpopulation.
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