Facts on Hunger

Hunger levels have begun to rise for the first time in a decade, the United Nations says. Here are some key facts:

• Last year the proportion of the world's population affected by hunger rose for the first time in more than a decade, to 11 percent - up from 10.6 percent in 2015. In 2005, the proportion was 14.2 percent.
• The number of hungry in 2016 was 815 million, up from 777 million in 2015. Numbers of hungry began to rise in 2014.
• The largest number live in Asia (520 million), followed by Africa (243 million), and Latin America and the Caribbean (42 million).
• Africa has the highest rates of hunger (20 percent), followed by Asia (11.7 percent) and Latin America and the Caribbean (6.6 percent).
• About a third of food produced every year is spoiled after harvest and during transport, or thrown away by shops and consumers.
• Obesity worldwide has doubled between 1980 and 2014, and most people live in countries where being overweight and obese kills more people than being underweight.
• Undernutrition and obesity can exist within the same country, the same community and the same household.
• Famine struck parts of South Sudan earlier this year, and there is a high risk that it could return there - and develop in other countries affected by conflict: northeast Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen.
• 489 million hungry people, and 122 million children, live in countries affected by conflict.
• Climate change, conflict and the global economic slowdown are the main causes of the recent increase in hunger

http://news.trust.org/item/20171016120616-xgatl/

This blog and the World Socialist Movement takes issue with that final statement. We say that it is capitalism which ultimately is the culprit in the cause of hunger.