More than 162 million people live in ultra poverty. Due to the current soaring food prices and the effects of climate change the number is increasing. The poor typically spend about 50 to 75 percent of their budget for food. Thus rising food prices result in  a less balanced diet with particularly negative effects for children under five. Social safety nets are hardly accessible for the ultra poor.
Climate change puts additional pressure on this group, as the impacts will be most severe in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa where most of the ultra poor live.

IFPRI recently proposed a comprehensive set of actions - an emergency package and a resilience package - which are needed to address the acute and long-run price effects of the current food and agriculture crisis.

  
Professor Dr. Joachim von Braun
Director General International Food Policy Research Institute - IFPRI
Washington D.C., USA
J.vonbraun@cgiar.org