India, Pakistan, Bangladesh to be highly impacted by next pandemic -- hunger

The US Department of Agriculture has said that global hunger will surge by a third this year, driven by income losses due to the pandemic. It estimated that 291 million people in middle- and low-income nations that are current or past recipients of US food aid will not have enough to eat in 2021. This is on top of the huge increase in hunger last year as the pandemic ravaged economies and devastated livelihoods. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia will see a huge surge of people without enough food, as per the report.

The department classifies someone as food-insecure if they are unable to maintain a diet of at least 2,100 calories a day.

Over 1.2 billion in 76 countries covered by the USDA report will be food-insecure this year. Before the pandemic the department had estimated that 761 million would fall into the category in those countries. The department said that most of the additional people are in Asia, accounting for 72 per cent of the increase. The four aforementioned countries including India will see a particular increase, while sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 21 per cent of the global increase in undernourished people, as mentioned in Bloomberg.

The highest prevalence of hunger with more than 80 per cent of the population in the country unable to eat are Yemen, Zimbabwe and Congo.

According to the report, the primary driver of the rising food insecurity is the dropping income levels, compared to the pre-pandemic levels. The report does not consider the potential impact of climate change, economic instability, armed conflict or political instability.

This comes after the United Nations estimated earlier this year that global food insecurity in 2020 hit the highest level in 15 years. Things are only expected to get worse in 2021.

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