Gender and hunger in the context of the recent crises: underlying factors

Between 2007 and 2008, international food prices soared, causing a severe world crisis – known as the food price crisis. By mid 2008, prices reached a peak and quickly fell as a global financial and economic crisis took hold. As a result, the number of undernourished people in the world shot up to over a billion, or about one of every 6 persons. Food riots in more than 60 countries caused dozens of victims. With a yet incipient economic recovery, the number of people who are food insecure seems to have gone down to around 925 millions!– still much higher than the figure before the crises. Decades of neglect of rural areas and of the agricultural sector, in favour of industrialisation and the service economy, created the conditions not only for the food price crisis, but for the stubbornly high numbers of hungry people. Investment in agriculture declined consistently throughout the last 30 years – both domestic, international, and through official development assistance – and this, despite the fact that most of the world’s achievements regarding the reduction of 1 The author is indebted to Martha Osorio, as this paper draws heavily on a joint previous paper.