"The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012": FAO releases report on global hunger

The FAO has released a new hunger report, "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012", and reveals that global hunger is declining. But 870 million people in the world are still chronically undernourished and Asia is home to the greatest number of the world's hungry people. The FAO has reported the distribution of global hunger as follows:

578 million in Asia and the Pacific
239 million in Sub-Saharan Africa
53 million in Latin America and the Caribbean
37 million in the Near East and North Africa

19 million in developed countries

Given the fact that hunger is on the decline, the report asserts that the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of cutting the prevalence of undernourishment in the developing world in half by 2015 is both possible and plausible. This goal can be reached, it further states, through sustained, responsible growth in agricultural output, accompanied by enhanced social protection for those in food and financial insecurity.  The FAO has stated that it must continue to improve its methodology and must find better, more accurate sources of data for its estimates of global hunger.