In 1945, the year the vicious war ended, there was famine in Italy, Russia, Bengal, Burma and much of China; and yet there were unsellable surpluses of food in the United States, Canada and some Latin American countries. Products could have been shipped, stored and sold in quantities large enough to feed any conceivable population. However, nearly three-quarters of humanity went hungry or were starving. Close to 60 years later, more than 800 million of the 6.3 billion people on Earth -- among them 300 million children -- still suffer the gnawing pain of hunger. Almost every year since the mid-1970s the world community of nations has renewed a call for the eradication of hunger and starvation within a decade.

Progress has been painfully slow. A study released last August by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a U.N. agency, says the number of hungry people is likely to decline to 440 million worldwide by 2030 -- still short of the 2000 Millennium Summit target of halving the number to 400 million by 2015.

"Even the less ambitious goal would not be reached for more than 60 years, too late for many of the world's poor," asserts another FAO report.