Title:
Results of UN Food Summit Seen as Disappointing
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
The United Nations held a World Summit on Food
Security in November. But the three-day meeting in
Rome produced only limited measures to fight rising
hunger. The U.N. World Food Program says more than a
billion people -- one in six worldwide -- do not get
enough food to be healthy.
The troubled world economy is not the only cause of
recent increases. The poorest countries continue to
face high food prices, which have fallen elsewhere.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says more
than thirty nations continue to need emergency food
assistance.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the food crisis
has forced millions of families into poverty and
hunger. He said six million children die of hunger
every year. And he warned that food security is
closely connected to the issue of climate change.
He said: "At a time when the global population is
growing, our global climate is changing. By twenty
fifty we will need to grow seventy percent more
food. Yet weather is becoming more extreme and
unpredictable."
The delegates in Rome promised to continue efforts
to reduce by half the number of hungry people by two
thousand fifteen. But critics pointed out that world
leaders made a similar promise more than ten years
ago.
Several countries promised to increase aid for
agriculture, to help developing nations become more
independent. Still, critics deplored a lack of
greater action. Leaders from more than sixty
countries were in Rome. But Italian Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader from a major
industrial nation in the Group of Eight. An official
from Kenya said it showed a lack of unity in the
fight against hunger.
The Food and Agriculture Organization says more than
forty billion dollars a year needs to be invested in
agriculture to defeat world hunger. The growing
problem has affected developing countries, but also
industrialized nations.
The government estimates that forty-nine million
people in the United States were "food insecure" in
two thousand eight. That means their households, at
some time during the year, had difficulty providing
enough food for all members because of a lack of
resources. Almost fifteen percent of all households
were in that situation. And the Agriculture
Department says the numbers may be even higher in
two thousand nine.
And that's the VOA Special English Development
Report.
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personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
