Thursday, June 21, 2012

Food security jeopardized by climate change

EurekAlert: On a planet with sufficient food for all, today almost half a billion women and children under 5 in the developing world are undernourished –a consequence of persistently limited nutritious food intake.

This number could increase by 20 percent, reaching one in five within a decade, compared to one in seven today, due to the impacts of climate change on global food production, according to a detailed analysis by The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN), 1,000 Days, World Vision International and partners.

"Food security is under threat by climate change. The linkages between its impacts on global food production, price volatility, population growth and nutrition need to be addressed in order to tackle undernourishment of these more vulnerable groups," says Julio Frenk, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Board of PMNCH and Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health.

According to the analysis, it is this equation of climate change and its impacts on food production plus increased population growth that would result in a deficit of global food production versus demand, which could increase by 100 million the number of undernourished women and children by 2020.

Food security will be one of the main issues to be discussed at both the Group of 20 (G20) and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) meetings in mid-June. "World leaders are committing to action and investment to improve nutrition for mothers and children during the critical 1,000 days from pregnancy to age two, when nutrition can have a lifelong impact on a child's future in terms of both health and development," says Carole Presern, Ph.D., Director of PMNCH and a midwife...

No comments: