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"The combination of food and economic crises has pushed the number of hungry people worldwide to historic levels--more than one billion people are undernourished," Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated in its annual hunger report-2009, produced in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP).

The world's economic travails have combined with a large increase in the price of staple foods in poor countries to force the number of undernourished people to the highest level since 1970. The total has risen by at least 100 million in the last year alone.

The UN's survey of the "state of food insecurity" found the gains of the 1980s and early 1990s – when the number of hungry people fell every year – were steadily being reversed. Instead, the total is rising in both relative and absolute terms for the first time in four decades.

Bulk of the starving population belong to the developing world, with Asia and the Pacific region estimated to have about 642 million hungry people in 2009, Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million, Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million while the Near East and North Africa 42 million, the report said.

On the other hand, the world's rich country have 15 million people who are suffering from chronic hunger, the report released on the eve of World Food Day on October 16 said.

The financial crisis affected a large part of the world at the same time, reducing the scope for traditional coping mechanisms such as currency devaluation, borrowing or increased use of official development assistance, it said.

In addition, the economic crisis came on top of a food crisis that had already strained the coping strategies of the poor, hitting those most vulnerable to food insecurity when they were down, it said.

Another factor that differentiates this crisis from those in the past is that developing countries have become more integrated, both financially and commercially, into the world economy than they were 20 years ago, making them more vulnerable to changes in international markets, the report added.

WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said, "We applaud the new commitment to tackle food security, but we must act quickly. It is unacceptable in the 21st century that almost one in six of the world's population is now going hungry."

"At a time when there are more hungry people in the world than ever before, there is less food aid than we have seen in living memory. We know what is needed to meet urgent hunger needs — we just need the resources and the international commitment to do the job."

The overall picture, however, is less gloomy than in the past. Four decades ago, one in three people in poor countries was undernourished – today that figure is one in five.

"The rising number of hungry people is intolerable. We have the economic and technical means to make hunger disappear, what is missing is a stronger political will to eradicate hunger forever"