More mouths, less money

A report (among many, it seems) from the United Nations outlines the need to push participating nations a bit harder to achieve food program goals set in 2000. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), more than 1.2 billion people live in extreme povery; more than 800 million of these people are involved in rural agriculture in some form. More than 850 million of the 1.2 billion are "chronically hungry." Five million children die each year from malnutrition.

There's not much in this call that is concrete -- the FAO urges the "developing and developed world to take immediate action." The worse news? Money towards rural development -- relief for the impoverished areas that need it the most -- has fallen since 1998. Read about the latest statistics on world food "insecurity" here (FAO report, 2004).