Millions of people will go hungry when future global food crises strike unless the world’s half a billion small-scale farms receive urgent support from the UK and other governments, says development agency Progressio.

A group of Christian leaders who campaign for justice in the fight against hunger are calling on the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to 'step up to the plate' and seek tangible results in realising the right to food.

Efforts to tackle the global food crisis will fail without urgent action to support small farmers in developing countries, says the Fairtrade Foundation in a new report launched today.

The world’s most critical environmental and social problems will only be solved by “a new vision of development”, a Catholic agency has told the United Nations.

Five aid agencies today announced that they have signed an agreement with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to deliver US government food assistance to North Koreans suffering from severe food shortages.

With an estimated 850 million people suffering from hunger worldwide, nine out of ten of them in developing countries, "the scandal of hunger demands the immediate attention of the churches", affirms a new statement from the WCC.

The agency is providing relief to hungry children and families affected by the crisis and is preparing to increase its response. Rising global prices for food and fuel have hammered Haiti, which survives largely on imported goods.

A Catholic aid agency has warned that the spiralling cost of food will exacerbate global malnutrition already affecting over 820 million people in developing countries. “Currently we have over 40 times the population of Australia who are malnourished”, said Caritas Australia.