This report comes at a time of severe economic crisis. The estimates reported that for the first time since 1970, more than one billion people, around on-sixth of all humanity, are hungry and undernourished worldwide. The book consists of three main chapters, i.e. (1) Undernourishment around the world; (2) Case studies of countries affected by the economic crisis; and (3) Towards eliminating hunger.

The current crisis is historically unprecedented, with several factors converging to make it particularly damaging to people at risk of food insecurity. First, it overlaps with a food crisis that in 2006-2008 pushed the prices of basic staples beyond the reach of millions of poor people; second, the crisis is affecting large parts of the world simultaneously, in which the scope of policy instruments to cope with the global crisis become more limited; third, with developing countries today more financially and commercially integrated into the world economy, they are far more exposed to shocks in international markets.

FAO estimates that 1.02 billion people are undernourished worldwide in 2009. The increase in food insecurity is not a result of poor crop harvest but because high domestic prices, lower income, and increasing unemployment have reduced access to food by the poor. Faced with the crisis, household are forced to find ways to cope. Coping mechanisms involve undesirable but often unavoidable compromises, such as replacing more-nutritious food with less-nutritious food, selling productive assets, withdrawing children from school, forgoing health care or education, or simply eating less. The respective coping mechanisms create poverty traps and negatively affect longer-term food security.

The case studies of countries affected by the economic crisis were conducted in five developing countries. Two of the five (Bangladesh and Nicaragua) are rated by the IMF as being at mediums risk from the crisis, while the other three (Armenia, Ghana and Zambia) are rated as high risk. The study indicated that a variety of coping mechanisms have been used by the poor to adapt to the crisis, depending on their own specific situation. The relative importance of remittances, foreign direct investment, overseas development assistance varies across the countries. The importance of remittance and trade has been increasing over the past decade. The global food crisis caused key staple food prices to increase in all of these countries.

The last chapter, towards eliminating hunger, consists of three important aspects, i.e. the importance of investing in agriculture and public goods; safety nets for the short term and long term; and the right to food. A healthy agriculture sector can provide an economic and employment buffer in time of crisis, especially in poor countries. To fulfil agriculture's role as an engine of growth and poverty alleviation, agriculture itself needs to grow. It is therefore important that, during and following economic crisis, investment in agriculture receives decisive support from both the private and public sectors. Private investment in agriculture requires accompanying public investment.

Despite the financial constraints faced by governments around the world, agricultural investment and safety nets remain key parts of an effective response to reduce food insecurity both now and in the future. Safety-net interventions should address the immediate impact on the vulnerable while also providing sustainable solutions to the underlying problems. As the shorter-term pillar of the twin-track approach, safety nets must enable recipients to become more credit-worthy and more able to access modern inputs and adopt new technologies, thus allowing them to graduate from the safety-net programme. To achieve these goals, safety nets should be well integrated with broader social assistance programmes.

In 2008, the right to adequate food was recognized as a fundamental component of a sustainable solution to the world food-security crisis caused by high food crisis. The right to food is, first of all, a basic human right enshrined in international law. A right-to-food perspective provides a framework for the diagnosis of the food security problem as well as guidance for the design, implementation and monitoring of initiatives taken in response to the food crisis. To lift the poor peoples out of hunger, the food-insecure need control over resources, access to opportunities, and improved governance at the international, national and local levels.

The state of food insecurity in the world 2009 is FAO's tenth progress report on world hunger since the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS). Various organization and institutional give substantial contribution to this well organized book, that will give significant contribution on problems solving of food insecurity and hunger faced by the people and government especially in developing countries.

Reviewed by I Wayan Rusastra, Senior Researcher, Indonesian Centre for Agriculture Socio Economic and Policy Studies (ICASEPS), Bogor, Indonesia.