Deliveries of world food aid slid by 30 percent in 2004 despite rising numbers of hungry people and record levels of money from donors, Reuter quoted the World Food Programme (WFP) as saying. The United Nations food agency said it was disturbed by the trend and appealed for food aid to take priority over infrastructure projects such as the building of roads and ports. "It's time for a Food First policy," said WFP executive director James Morris. "Hungry children don't get any sustenance from the roads, ports and factories we build with the increases in development aid. "We have to put ending to hunger and malnutrition at the top of our priority list. The cost in human suffering is just too high and it's going up," he said in a statement. The Rome-based WFP said total food aid delivered from all sources fell from 10.3 million tons in 2003 to 7.5 million tons in 2004, continuing a downward trend stemming from 1999, when 15 million tons of food aid were delivered. Over the same period, the number of hungry people in the world rose from an estimated 790 million to 852 million. "All the major donors have been building up their development assistance over the last few years and it is at a record level of nearly $80 billion. So the money is there. More of it must make its way to hungry people," Morris said.
