“Food crises are jeopardizing efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015, United Nations (U.N.) food experts warned” on Monday, according to the Guardian. “In an annual report on world hunger, U.N. food agencies said food price volatility is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity,” the news service writes.

“Small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially at risk, with many of them still facing severe problems following the world food and economic crises of 2006-2008, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in their joint report,” the Guardian notes, adding, “The report emphasized that investment in agriculture remains critical to sustainable, long-term food security and called for money to be put into irrigation, improved land-management practices and better seeds developed through agricultural research” (10/10).