Famine is caused by a lack of access to food that can lead to starvation and death, usually impacting millions. It is the result of long-term social, political, and economic processes rather than singular causes. In 2010, 925 million people experienced hunger worldwide. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger as many lack sufficient land or income to purchase enough food, despite global food production being enough to provide everyone with at least 2,720 kilocalories per day. Progress in reducing world hunger has been marginal, with the number of undernourished people increasing to over 1 billion rather than being halved by 2015 as targeted.

1. Famine

2. Hunger Hunger is a term which has three meanings the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food; craving appetite. Also the exhausted condition caused by want of food the want or scarcity of food in a country a strong desire or craving

3. 925 million hungry people in 2010

4. Facts Every year 15 million children die of hunger Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night. About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day. Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year. The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet. It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.

5. Number of hungry people, 1969-2010

6. In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programs in developing countries. Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!

7. CAUSES Famine is a situation of chronic lack of food leading to eventual starvation and death for thousands or millions depending on the scale. It is not the result of singular causes like low rainfall or too many mouths to feed but results from a long series of social, political and economic processes and policies. Famines can be and are predicted with alarming accuracy because they take months and years to grow from food shortages to full-blown food emergencies.

8. Causes Continued… Poverty is the principal cause of hunger Harmful economic systems Conflict Climate Change

9. Does the world produce enough food to feed everyone? The world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day.

10. So what is the problem? The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.

11. Progress in reducing the number of hungry people The target set at the 1996 World Food Summit was to halve the number of undernourished people by 2015 from their number in 1990-92. The estimated number of undernourished people in developing countries was 824 million in 1990-92. In 2009, the number had climbed to 1.02 billion people. The WFS goal is a global goal adopted by the nations of the world; the present outcome indicates how marginal the efforts were in face of the real need. Overall, the world is not making progress toward the world food summit goal, although there has been progress in Asia, and in Latin America and the Caribbean.