Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 169

CHAPTER 5 percent of Tanzania’s economic growth between 2008 and 2012: communications, banking and financial services, retail trade, construction, and manufacturing. The five leading growth sectors are concentrated in urban areas, but about 80 percent of Tanzania’s poor people live in rural areas.23 This urban focus explains why years of steady economic growth has not significantly lowered Tanzania’s poverty rate. 24 Today, more than half of the world’s 848 million hungry and malnourished people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.25 In 2008, the number of hungry people in the world surged perhaps by more than 100 million as a result of doubling food prices.26 The food-price crisis was a wake-up call for the international community about the need for a much greater focus on agricultural development in developing countries. In July 2009, Group of 8 (G-8) leaders representing eight developed economies gathered in L’Aquila, Italy, where a U.S. proposal to invest significantly more resources in agriculture won support from other donors. In what became known as the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, G-8 members committed to providing $22 billion in financing for agriculture and food security over three years. More than four years into the L’Aquila initiative, the United States has fulfilled its pledge of $3.5 billion, but other donors are falling short. The primary U.S. contribution is the Feed the Future initiative. A projected surge in world population to 9 billion by 2050,27 accompanied by only slight increases in available farmland, means that additional production will need to come from strategies that increase productivity. The coming years are also likely to create additional stress on agricultural production. Climate change—the long-term shifts in temperatures now taking place and expected to continue, and the results of those shifts—is expected to increase the frequency of shocks such as fl ooding and drought. Around the world, climate change is already damaging food and water security in significant and highly unpredictable ways. Increased investments in agricultural research and extension and rural infrastructure will help prepare for these challenges. Extension services can help farmers adopt new technolo- BOX 5.2 MDGS AND FOOD PRICES “When food prices surged in 2007-2008, we were not as flatfooted as we would have been without the Millennium Development Goals,” says Cheryl Morden of the International Fund for Agricultural Development.30 It was the MDGs that prompted world leaders to ask questions like “Who is poor and hungry?” and “Where are they?” One answer became clear: 70 percent of people in extreme poverty who are hungry live in rural areas. “Because the Millennium Development Goals helped them to see the depth of rural poverty,” says Morden, “world leaders responded swiftly with aid targeted to smallholder farmers, the largest group of rural poor.” www.bread.org/institute? ? 2014 Hunger Report? 159 n