It will eventually be a world of cities. The planet is expected to have 5.3 billion urban residents by 2050, according to forecasts by the UN. That’s 2 billion more than what the planet has today. In developing countries, 5 million new people migrate to cities every month, swelling urban populations. Many are fleeing the poverty of the countryside, and merely moving to the food security problems in city slums.
The approximately 900 million people today that suffer from hunger and malnutrition are poor farmers. In the coming decades, this phenomenon will only shift to the urban setting. In non-rural areas, people have little direct access to farm property. Their ability to thrive depends on the money they earn.
On a continent like Africa where the majority of urban dwellers live on less than a dollar a day, the smallest economic impact and any increase in prices is fatal. There is an alarming rise in the number of citizens who must be satisfied with one meal a day. Children suffer key dramatic nutritional deficiencies.
Faced with the threat of a massive rise in urban malnutrition in the multiplying cities of the world, the FAO and NGOs seek to promote more robust food systems that are adapted to and rooted in the local terrain.
Posted by GSerrano on March 27, 2009 in Critic, Society & Culture · 0 Comment
