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Excerpts: Global food security—assuring that food is accessible to the world's population—remains an elusive goal. Although world food production over the past decade has out-paced global population growth, a large portion of the world's inhabitants remain undernourished. Food security is primarily a concern of poor people and poor nations. At the global level, the primary problem is food distribution. Countries and individuals that lack purchasing power cannot buy the food they need, even when supplies are abundant. Supplies are not always abundant, however, and coping with production variability is a key part of food security. When food supplies become scarce—because of production shortfalls or price variability—the poor generally suffer first and hardest. A relatively small portion of the world's total productive resources would be required for the additional production to provide adequate diets. USDA estimates that approximately 20 million tons of cereal imports would currently be required to bring per capita consumption up to minimally adequate levels in poorer African, Asian, and Latin American countries. This figure is only 8.5 percent of total world cereal trade, and only 1.2 percent of total world grain production.

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