Food insecurity in Egypt on the rise since 2009

[DJKeefy]

The World Food Programme (WFP) in Egypt released a report on Tuesday showing that 17 percent of Egypt's population, an estimated 13.7 million people, suffered from food insecurity in 2011, compared to 14 percent in 2009.

According to the joint report by the World Food Programme, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and CAPMAS, an Egyptian state-run statistics body, a series of shocks from 2006 including the avian influenza epidemic and the food, fuel and financial crisis of 2007-09 triggered a crisis in food security.

The result has been an increase in poverty rates and of malnutrition.

Threats of increasing inflation rates in the short term might worsen the situation, according to the report.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected inflation will reach 10.9 percent by the end of the year and climb to 11.6 percent in 2014 as the Egyptian government implements subsidy cuts.

The report also finds that the average Egyptian household spends 40.6 percent of its expenditures on food, rising to more than half for the poorest.

As food prices increase, the poorest tend to buy less expensive, thus less nutritious foods, leading to malnutrition. The report noted that stunted growth in children under five years of age had reached 31 percent in 2011, up from 23 percent in 2005.

Rural Upper Egypt continues to have the highest poverty rate, at 51.5 per cent of the population, double the national average. Greater Cairo, however, has approximately 3.5 million poor and food-insecure people.

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/72006.aspx

[Chocolate Eclair]

Maybe if they had not sold so much farm land for building, there would be more land to grow food and materials that make food. Greed and the race for easy money is now starting to slap them in the face....

[BENNU]

Maybe if they had not sold so much farm land for building, there would be more land to grow food and materials that make food. Greed and the race for easy money is now starting to slap them in the face....

"They" are hardly the ones being slapped in the face.

[Who2]

If, if you feel insecure and are in need of food come to us, we have ducks, chickens, turkeys, lamb, pidgins, bread, cheese, milk even the odd pig but that costs a bit more actually a lot more, think of us as Fortnum's & Mason for poor people....
PS: 'when the going gets tough, the tough go to lunch.

[LovelyLadyLux]

The result has been an increase in poverty rates and of malnutrition.

I think there would also be an increase in lots of other factors as well - domestic violence, crime, mental health etc which all work to compound all the problems.

Here and this here being the USA there is quite a proliferation of food banks, community kitchens, requests for food donations to augment the poor here. Quite a few churches have opened their landmaking garden boxes to allow select families and church members to grow their own gardens. Same same with many of the low income residential housing projects.