Table set thinly as Food Summit pledges to halve world hunger in 20 years.

• Position: Includes related articles on the commitments embodied in the summit plans and crop patterns

Over the past half century, agricultural production has managed to keep pace with and even outstrip population growth. Yet, there are today some 840 million people worldwide who are chronically undernourished, unable to get enough food to meet their body's energy or nutrient requirements. Over 200 million children under the age of five still suffer from basic protein and energy deficiencies. Millions suffer from diseases and retarded development related to diet deficiencies. And every year, nearly 13 million children die unnecessarily as a direct or indirect result of hunger and malnutrition. That means that while you read this paragraph, 20 more children have died of hunger and malnutrition.

By the year 2030, planet Earth is expected to have to nourish 8.7 billion people - up by half from the current 5.7 billion inhabiting this Earth. Just maintaining current levels of food availability will require rapid and sustainable production gains to increase supplies by more than 75 per cent - all without destroying the natural resources on which our survival depends.

It is clear that achieving food security for the world's hungry, who make up 20 per cent of the population of developing countries, means policies that can make it possible for them to grow or buy the food they need today and into the future.

Meeting against this backdrop and in the shadow of the emergency in eastern Zaire, the World Food Summit (13-17 November 1996) concluded in Rome by setting a course for achieving universal food security - "Food for All" - when it adopted by acclamation the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food Summit Plan of Action. These documents also pledge efforts to halve the number of hungry in the world no later than 2015.

Representatives of 186 countries in the Rome Summit included 41 Presidents, 15 Vice-Presidents and 41 Prime Ministers. A total of 9,863 delegates attended, including representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies and other international bodies, journalists and support staff. NGOs, youth, parliamentarians, family farmers associations and the private sector held parallel meetings in Rome and reported back to the Summit on their conclusions.

In the Declaration, Heads of State and Government or their representatives said it was "intolerable" and "unacceptable" that over three quarters of a billion people throughout the world "do not have enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs". Reaffirming that "a peaceful, stable and enabling political, social and economic environment is the essential foundation" to food security, they pledged "actions and support" to implement the Summit Plan of Action.

The Action Plan, which is also intended to help deal effectively in the future with emergencies such as in Zaire, contains seven detailed commitments, including sustainable increases in food production, poverty eradication, access...