Food costs bite in Asia

1. 

In many parts of Asia, basic food items have never been less affordable.

 

 As food availability plummets and prices remain high, Asia's poor are finding it harder to feed their children, raising fears that the recent progress made in child health and development may be reversed

Extreme weather conditions in Asia have caused cycles of drought and flooding, destroying grain and cereal crops across the region.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has identified Afghanistan, North Korea, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste (East Timor) as facing severe food insecurity.

In countries across the region, scarcity coupled with unequal food distribution has driven up the cost of basic foods. Lack of profitability in the agricultural sector is forcing farmers to abandon their crops in search of more reliable and better paying work in cities. This is making them even more dependent on cash to feed their families, at a time when food has never been less affordable.

The effects of food scarcity hit children the hardest, with many forced to leave school to supplement their family's meagre income. Lack of nutritious food has devastating long-term effects, from stunted development to susceptibility to disease.

In a silent 'famine', children in many countries throughout Asia are already falling sick or dying from malnutrition.