FAO Media Centre: Annan warns hunger could become permanent disaster

FAO Media Centre: Annan warns hunger could become permanent disaster

Annan warns hunger could become permanent disaster
Land size of France bought by hedge funds in 2009, says chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
Kofi Annan addresses the 37th FAO Conference, 25 June 2011. 25 June 2011, Rome - Kofi Annan, chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, has warned that the current food security crisis, with almost one billion people hungry, could turn into a permanent disaster, endangering millions of lives as well as international cooperation. "Along with tackling the linked problem of climate change, delivering global food and nutrition security is the challenge of our time,” he said. Delivering the 27th McDougall Memorial Lecture on food security today, the former UN Secretary General and Nobel Peace Prize winner said, "if countries cannot come together successfully to deliver food security – this most basic of human needs – our hopes for wider international co-operation look doomed."