UN urges active response to food crisis

Any recovery from the current economic crisis will be incomplete if the related food crisis is not addressed, according to a new UN study.

For 583 million people across the Asia-Pacific region, the financial crisis has become a food crisis, according to a report entitled Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in Asia and the Pacific, launched yesterday in Beijing.

"While the world's attention is very much on the economic crisis, food insecurity remains a real threat," said Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).