Introduction

The world has been able to produce enough food to provide every citizen with an adequate diet to lead a healthy, active and productive life. Yet the hungry-poor (those earning less than the equivalent of one dollar a day, or who spend most of their income on food), comprising one-fifth of the developing world’s population, do not have enough to eat. The co-existence of hunger with the capacity to end it is one of the gravest paradoxes of our time. It is not only morally repugnant and unacceptable but politically, economically and socially indefensible. Poverty is the underlying cause of hunger. Other factors, including political irresponsibility, corruption, civil unrest, ethnic and religious conflict, sudden natural disasters, and prolonged and widespread drought, have compounded further the problem of poverty, and thereby hunger.