'Hunger becoming more serious in Phl'

WASHINGTON – Hunger is becoming more serious in the Philippines, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said.

The Washington-based institute said the Global Hunger Index (GHI) for the Philippines in 2012 was 12.2 from 11.5 in 2011.

Countries are ranked on a 100-point GHI scale in which zero is the best score (no hunger) and 100 the worst, although neither of these extremes is reached in practice.

Out of 120 countries listed, 41 had GHI scores of less than five and 79 had scores of five and above. Not included in the list were the more developed countries in Europe and North America and Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

In the group of 79, the Philippines was in 31st place with a GHI of 12.2.

Malaysia was in 3rd place with a 5.2 GHI and Thailand in 18th place with 8.1.

Hunger, usually understood to refer to the discomfort associated with lack of food, was deemed to be serious or alarming in countries with a GHI score of more than 10.

Haiti (30.8 GHI), Eritrea (34.4 GHI) and Burundi (37.1 GHI) had poverty levels described as “extremely alarming” and were at the bottom of the list.

The IFPRI report came on the heels of a United Nations estimate that six million Filipino children are malnourished.

Food security was threatened by governments’ focus on short-term economic gains and uncoordinated land, water, and energy policies, said the 2012 index report.

The IFPRI said the number of people living on between $1.25 and $2 a day nearly doubled between 1981 and 2008 – from 648 million to 1.18 billion – while the rate of growth in the number of people earning more than $2 a day slowed.  

In some countries and regions, the poor are trapped in downward spirals of abject poverty, low prospects for economic activity and unavailable or degraded natural resources, it said.

One outcome of the scarcity and degradation of farmland is the growing number of deals giving land-scarce or resource-demanding countries access to farmland in land-abundant countries.