The United Nations released its food security report and stated that the world's hungry dropped by 100 million over the last decade. However, one in nine of the world's population remains undernourished, with the majority of the world's underfed found in Asia.

The report titled "State of Food Insecurity in the World", which is a collaborative work conducted by three UN agencies namely, the Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Food Programme (WFP) shows largely positive results.

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On the whole, the report shows that access to food had improved dramatically. Imporvements are most notable in countries that experienced economic progress. This includes countires in East and Southeast Asia, and South Asia, and Latin America.

Several notable gains were heralded, including the probability of cutting in half the number of the world's underfed populace by 2015.

The report said the gains are proof that the world can win against hunger and that it should inspire many countries to address the problem.

Thanks to marked gains in infrastructure, economic strength and political stability, the historically underfed Asian nations of China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam are now able to feed their populations much more efficiently. Symptoms of malnourishment — stunting, underweight, and nutrient deficiencies — are down.

Rather, the locus of concern was reserved for Asia's continental west. Owing to warfare, political instability, falling hygienic conditions, and the increased fragility of food supplies and transportation routes, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East are now showing signs of malnourishment.

In the past, all three had been able to meet their nutritional demands.

The report also noted a fairly new challenge to local food supplies: Disease. Africa, chronically malnourished, faces a new challenge in feeding its people thanks to the Ebola crisis.

While much of the continent is in fact quite fertile, regions struck by the viral outbreak are showing signs of undernourishment because farmers are afraid to go their fields and harvest their crops. This is on top of periodic outbreaks of other diseases Africa periodically endures, such as malaria and sleeping sickness.

"The sick are not harvesting their crops and the loss of this harvest will be considerable, impacting up to 1.3 million people," WFP head Ertharin Cousin told journalists during the report's release.

The report also added the contribution of family farmers in food production and employment. It said that farmers produce a significantly large proportion of the food the world eats and the farming sector is the biggest employer in the world.

Also, the report highlighted farmers' roles of protecting world agricultural biodiversity, including safeguarding natural resources.

Ironically, the report found that even in places where food is plentiful, bad diets and resultant health problems are hampering the battle against malnutrition.

Tagsworld hunger, undernourished, malnourishment, Asia