Increasing Food Security - Facts

Food Security Facts

• As of 2009, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide.
  
  
• The Micronutrient Initiative's vitamin A program, supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), provided more than 75 percent of the developing world's need for vitamin A and has contributes to saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of children every year.
  
  
• Vitamin A programming has averted over 2.1 million deaths worldwide since 1998 (UNICEF).
  
  
• In 2008, Canada was the third largest single country donor to the United Nations World Food Programme. And Canada continues to respond to urgent food-related emergencies. In September 2009, Canada was among the first countries to respond to a worldwide appeal and provide $30 million for food aid to drought victims in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda.
  
  
• Working through a Pan-African initiative and in response to producer and marketer demands, 101 new bean varieties―resistant to diseases and poor soils―were made available to an estimated 7.12 million households or over 35 million people. This Pan-African initiative has allowed over 2.7 million farmers, 52 percent of which are women, to use new options for soil, pest, and disease management. Among African low-income families, bean consumption is the highest in the world.
  
  
• New maize varieties developed by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research contribute $1 billion annually to the economies of developing countries. These new maize varieties are grown by a quarter-million farmers, on close to 1 million hectares, and seed is now available to push that total up to 2.5 million hectares across Eastern and Southern Africa.
  
  
• In 2008, CIDA and its numerous partners helped to feed more than 102 million people in as many as 78 countries and trained 3.3 million people to use improved agricultural technologies and services.
  
  
• In 2008, Canada contributed over $36 million to feed schoolchildren worldwide which helped increase enrolment and attendance rates and decrease dropout rates.
  
  
• In untying its food aid budget, Canada provides its partners with greater flexibility to procure food commodities from developing countries, and helps to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in a more timely manner, while at the same time promoting the development of local and regional markets. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that tied aid raises the cost of food aid by as much as 35 percent.