By John Oba
Abuja
The Zero Hunger Campaign Organisation (ZHCO), has revealed that food wasted the world over is enough to feed over two billion hungry people.
It stated on its website that in a world of seven billion, 1.4 billion people rely on agriculture for their livelihoods and achieving a zero hunger in the world means protecting jobs in agriculture.
This is even as the 2015 United Nations report revealed that eradicating world hunger sustainably by 2030 will require an estimated additional $267 billion per year on average for investments in rural and urban areas and in social protection.
Adding that poor people have access to food and can improve their livelihoods, a 2015 United Nations report says. This would average $160 annually for each person living in extreme poverty over the 15 year period.
Zero hunger project further stated that while 66 million children in developing world attend primary school hungry daily, 1.3 billion tons of edible food is lost or wasted yearly, adding that in development countries, 40% of losses occur during harvest and processing level while in industrialized nations, 40% of losses happened at the retail or consuming level.
“It’s sad: In the world today, nearly 80% of the 800 million extremely poor and undernourished people live in rural areas. An estimated 45% of deaths in children under 5 are attributable to undernutrition.
“Nearly 795 million people still go to bed hungry every night. But through agriculture, we can feed the future and achieve zero hunger by 2030.
“75 % of the poorest populations rely on agriculture for their food and income. Livelihoods that depend on agriculture are on the front line of protracted crises, food chain emergencies and natural hazards and climate-related disasters. When a climate-related disaster strikes, 25 % of the total damage and losses are absorbed by the agriculture sector,” it stated.
Laura Vazquez an analyst said: “We need sustainable food supply chain to solve both hunger and food loss or waste, adding that fighting poverty, injustice, and climate change won’t happen without putting zero hunger project at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).
It stated further that eradicating world hunger sustainably by 2030 will require an estimated additional $267 billion per year on average for investments in rural and urban areas and in social protection, so poor people have access to food and can improve their livelihoods, a 2015 United Nations report says. This would average $160 annually for each person living in extreme poverty over the 15 year period.
