More people are projected to face acute food insecurity globally, as the food crisis worsens in 19 hunger hotspots. This is according to the latest joint report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UN World Food Programme (WFP) report titled Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP Early Warnings on Acute Food Insecurity: October 2022 to January 2023 Outlook.

The expected increase in food insecurity is attributed to rising conflict, weather extremes, and economic instability intensified by the pandemic and the ripple effects of the crisis in Ukraine. Thus FAO and WFP call for urgent humanitarian action to save lives and livelihoods and prevent famine in hotspot countries.

“The severe drought in the Horn of Africa has pushed people to the brink of starvation, destroying crops and killing livestock on which their survival depends. Acute food insecurity is rising fast and spreading across the world. People in the poorest countries, in particular, who have yet to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, are suffering from the ripple effects of ongoing conflicts in terms of prices, food and fertilizer supplies, as well as the climate emergency. Without a massively scaled up humanitarian response that has at its core time-sensitive and life-saving agricultural assistance, the situation will likely worsen in many countries in the coming months,” said FAO Director-General QU Dongyu.

For more information, read the news release and the joint UN report.

https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=19774