Asia lags behind pre-pandemic levels of food security, UN food agency says

By ELAINE KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — The  U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization says that hunger remains a chronic problem in Asia. A report issued Monday shows 55 million more people were undernourished in 2022 than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Progress has stagnated as the pandemic reversed a longstanding trend beginning in the early 2000s toward alleviation of hunger. The FAO study says more than half of the 735 million people who are nourished worldwide live in the Asia-Pacific, most of them in South Asia. The share of people suffering from such undernourishment fell to 8.4% in 2022 from 8.8% the year before. But that’s higher than the 7.3% of people who were undernourished before the pandemic began.