World Food Crisis

The International issue of fulfilling the food requirements of more than 6.0 billion population of the world and to save the people of underdeveloped and poor countries from famine and hunger, is becoming serious one on international level. According to Food and Agricultural Organization's report for the year 2011, the prices of food item are rising significantly and the production of agricultural commodities is decreasing. FAO has warned about the worsening situation of food commodities globally, and specially in the backward countries. A food crisis prevailed during 2007-08 that was linked to World economic as well as to the oil crisis. The reasons for the crisis were multifarious. According to experts, increasing population of the world, low agricultural yields, unfavorable weather conditions, increased use of meat and other food commodities, alternative usage of oil and use of crops for making bio-fuel were the reasons for crisis during 2008. The impacts of this crisis were negative on the poor and developing countries including Pakistan. A World Bank report says that due to shortage of foods nearly 100 million more people in the world have fell below the poverty line. Due to the cutting of forests and establishment of industries in the world specially in the Chili and Brazil, agricultural area is decreasing quickly and weather conditions are changing that create the main causes of food crisis. According to the statistics of The UN Fund for Population (UNFPA), the world population has doubled during the last half century. In 1999, world population consisted of 6 billion people, in 2006 it was 6.7 billion, and National Geographical magazine says that by the end of 2011 , world population will touch the figure of 7.0 billion and in 2024 it may go up to 8.0 billion. Another statistics says that in 2050 the world population will be 9 billion with the addition of 2.53 billion people every year.