Throughout history, proportions of the world's population have often experienced sustained periods of hunger. In many cases, this resulted from food supply disruptions caused by war, plagues, or adverse weather.


In October 2012, the FAO published a report saying that their earlier 2009 estimate that one Billion people were suffering from chronic hunger was over stated, due to flawed methodology resulting from the pressure they were under to quickly estimate the effects of the financial crisis on hunger. They also said the number of people currently suffering from chronic hunger is close to 842 million.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture in 2015, 50 million Americans experienced food insecurity in 2009, including 17 million childre

Hunger as an academic and social topic came to prominence during the Great Depression. As many individuals struggled for food, the same agricultural industries were suddenly producing large surpluses as means of increased production to counter the drop in demand from the European markets. This increased output was meant to ease the growing debt levels, however domestic demand could not keep up with prices. the hungr