taken the right course in trying to deal with `the richness, complexity, and
contradictory nature' of the subject without `succumbing to the temptation of
oversimplification'. But complexity had made it more difficult to reach consensus.
The need to apply `the very best of scientific knowledge' to the subject carried the
risk of `inconclusiveness' and therefore of `inaction'.
have continued to the present (IFRPI, 1995b). Considerable disagreement prevailed
on the magnitude and nature of the world's food and environment problems.
A `dangerous sense of complacency' about the future seemed to develop. It was for
that reason that IFPRI had launched it 2020 Vision initiative both to better inform
and to develop and pursue a course of action. The initiative built on food policy
research by IFPRI and others and relied on data from many sources, most notably
FAO. IFPRI's research and global food model (IMPACT) suggested that `the world
is far from approaching bio-physical limits to global food production. Warning
signs, however, suggest that growth in food production has begun to lag. Increases
in food production did not keep pace with population growth in more than 50
developing countries in the 1980s and early 1990s'. About 800 million people, 20
per cent of the developing world's population, were food-insecure in 1995. They
lacked economic and physical access to the food required to lead healthy and
productive lives. Their numbers had declined from 950 million in 1970 primarily
because of a 50 per cent reduction in the number of food-insure people in East
Asia. South Asia still had about 270 million hungry people, while sub-Saharan
Africa had emerged as `a major locus of hunger', where the number of hungry
people had increased by 46 per cent since 1970 to 175 million in 1995. And the
prospects for reducing malnutrition among the world's children was `grim' with
about 185 million children under the age of six years seriously underweight for
their age.
iron-deficient, resulting in anaemia in 1.2 billion. More than half the pregnant
women in the developing world were anaemic. Some 1.25 million pre-school
children suffered from vitamin A deficiency, resulting in eye damage to 1.4 million
of them. And more than 600 million people had iodine-deficiency disorders. In
IFPRI's view, `Hunger is, and will remain, the primary challenge confronting devel-
oping countries'. But IFPRI research found a paradoxical nutrition-related trend of
obesity emerging in some areas, particularly in urban locations. With the change
in diet to more fatty foods, such as livestock products, and more sedentary occupa-
tions, obesity was becoming a serious public health problem in developing as well
as developed countries resulting in increased chronic diseases such as heart condi-
tion. IFPRI posed the question, what if we do not take action? Existing resources
were sufficient to achieve the 2020 Vision, if the global community took appro-
priate action, including the necessary re-allocation of resources. If appropriate
action is not taken, a time would come when natural resource constraints would