摘要：FAO estimates that 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009. This represents more hungry people than at any time since 1970 and a worsening of the unsatisfactory trends that were present even before the economic crisis. The increase in food insecurity is not a result of poor crop harvests but because high domestic food prices, lower incomes and increasing unemployment have reduced access to food by the poor. In other words, any benefits from falling world cereal prices have been more than offset by the global economic downturn. 2009 has been a devastating year for the world's hungry, marking a significant worsening of an already disappointing trend in global food security since 1996. The global economic slowdown, following on the heels of the food crisis in 2006.08, has deprived an additional 100 million people of access to adequate food. There have been marked increases in hunger in all of the world's major regions, and more than one billion people are now estimated to be undernourished. The fact that hunger was increasing even before the food and economic crises suggests that present solutions are insufficient and that a right-to-food approach has an important role to play in eradicating food insecurity. To lift themselves out of hunger, the food-insecure need control over resources, access to opportunities, and improved governance at the international, national and local levels. A healthy agriculture sector can provide an economic and employment buffer in times of crisis, especially in poorer countries. However, past experience of economic crises suggests that investment in agriculture may soon decline. In this work paper we point the fact that agriculture can play its role as an engine of growth and poverty reduction and act as the longer-term pillar of the twin-track approach to fighting hunger. Indeed, increased investment in agriculture during the 1970s and 1980s helped reduce the number of undernourished. Due attention must also be given to developing the rural non-farm sector in parallel with agriculture, which is another key pathway out of poverty and food insecurity
