The UN estimates that almost two thirds of the world's hungry people are in Asia, which is of course the world's most populous continent.

Although this region has a much lower population than Asia, it has the highest percentage of hungry people. Almost all of the rest are in Latin America, North Africa and the Caribbean. In the richest regions of the world there are only a tiny number of people who don't have enough to eat.

They include wars, droughts, floods, and the over-use of farming land. All these factors affect food production.

But the most important reason, quite simply, is poverty, which has increased recently due to the financial crisis of 2008.
Although many people make the obvious point that there would be less hunger if the global population were smaller, few people would argue that there is not enough food to go around. The basic problem seems to be not a lack of food, but its distribution. In the last 50 years, global food production has risen even more quickly than the global population. There are many areas of the world in which people generally have more than enough food.

The answer to world hunger, therefore, may be a balanced food distribution around the whole world. Everyone will have enough to eat, but not overeat.