The food supply in this area is made up of only one-fifth of the world’s animal and fish protein and less than one-half of the food crops from the land.

In contrast, 29 per cent of the world’s population in Europe, Oceania and North America has available to it 57 per cent of the total world supplies.

In other regions of the world, the food situation is generally better than in the Far East, but is still far from satisfactory, the survey says.

Africa, with seven per cent of the population, has four per cent of the world’s total food. The Near East has four per cent of the population and four per cent of the total food supplies. Latin America has 6.9 per cent of the population, and 6.4 per cent of the total food supplies.

The survey confirms recent F.A.O. studies suggesting that some 10 to 15 per cent of the world’s population is under-nourished (or hungry) and that between one-third and one-half suffer from hunger or malnutrition or from both.

In a preface to the survey, FAO Director-General B.R. Sen says: “These facts… present a very serious challenge to mankind.

“Even looking only to the needs of the development decade,” world food supplies will have to be increased by more than 35 per cent merely “to sustain the world’s population at its present unsatisfactory level of diet”.—Agencies