FAO urges end of malnutrition as priority

Denouncing the huge social and economic costs of malnutrition, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva on Tuesday called for resolute efforts to eradicate malnutrition as well as hunger from around the world.

In a recorded statement marking the launch of FAO’s flagship annual publication The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA), Graziano da Silva said that although the world has registered some progress on hunger, one form of malnutrition, there was still “a long way ahead”.

He declared “FAO’s message is that we must strive for nothing less than the eradication of hunger and malnutrition”.

The report, Food systems for better nutrition, notes that although some 870 million people were still hungry in the world in 2010-2012, this is just a fraction of the billions of people whose health, wellbeing and lives are blighted by malnutrition.

Two billion people suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies, while 1.4 billion are overweight, of whom 500 million are obese, according to the report on the State of Food and Agriculture. Twenty six percent of all children under five are stunted and 31 percent suffer from Vitamin A deficiency.