Global hunger: do the figures add up?

(From Guardian Unlimited)

Four years ago, soaring food prices and reports of food riots from West Bengal to Mexico made headlines worldwide and fuelled a new demand for global hunger figures. How have people been affected by rising food prices? Has hunger increased? What is the "human cost" of global economic crisis?

In 2009, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) responded with a set of projections: by the end of the year, it said, world hunger was likely to reach a "historic high", with 1.02 billion people going hungry every day.

"A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said Jacques Diouf , then head of the UN food agency.

Almost …