Future of hunger

SIR – You report (telegraph.co.uk, September 6) that the “number of people going hungry could fall by 2030, counter to ‘apocalyptic’ predictions”.

Based on a paper in Global Food Security, you say that “the forecast runs counter to other predictions, including from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which has predicted the number affected by hunger could increase by around a quarter by 2030”.

However, that was a tentative prediction published in the UN’S State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report in 2020. Revised projections released this year, based on new information and a new method, are quite closely aligned with the findings of the paper you cite.

The latest report suggests that, following a peak of around 768 million (9.9 per cent of the population) in 2020, global hunger will decrease to around 710 million in 2021 (9 per cent), then continue to decrease to less than 660 million (7.7 per cent) in 2030.

In this sense, the FAO’S predictions cannot be described as “apocalyptic”.

Maximo Torero Cullen

Chief Economist, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations Rome, Lazio, Italy