G8 agriculture ministers meeting in Italy this weekend must inject an additional $30 billion a year into helping small-scale farmers grow more food to stop an extra half a million people going hungry each day.

At present one billion people globally do not have enough to eat – more than the populations of the US, Canada and the European Union put together. The terrifying prospect of growing global populations, coupled with climate change, will exacerbate this. Global warming alone could increase the number of hungry by another billion by 2080.

Shockingly, half of those already hungry are small-scale farmers, who are unable to grow enough food to feed themselves and their families.

ActionAid agriculture expert Livia Zoli said: "Compared to the US bail-out package of $12.6 trillion, $30 billion a year is peanuts. In these brutal economic times, hunger is fast becoming the forgotten crisis. But this is a crisis of epic proportions.

"In the last three months, the official hunger records have swelled by 40 million – that is half a million more people a day during 2009 being pushed into chronic hunger.

"The world is facing a hungry and bleak future unless we radically reform agriculture."

In the last 25 years, spending on aid to agriculture has decreased by 85 per cent for multilateral donors and by nearly 40 per cent for bilateral donors.

In the first half of 2008 there was renewed interest in agriculture, due to the food crisis. But apart from official statements, this has turned into very modest financial aid.

Ms Zoli said: "The export-oriented agriculture model driven by landlords, plantation owners and giant agriculture and food companies, has failed. It is time for donor countries to radically change their thinking and approach."

ActionAid is calling on the G8 agricultural ministers to:

• Stop imposing trade rules and economic policy conditions that make it difficult for developing country governments to support small-scale farmers and agriculture. Support developing countries’ proposals for tariff protection to allow them to shield key agricultural goods from the vagaries of international prices.
• Agree to support a UN-led Global Partnership on food with equal power and say between donor and poor countries. This would see a huge scaling-up of funding directed towards supporting national governments plans to support smallholders and sustainable agriculture.
• Shift investment in research and development from genetically modified crops to sustainable ecological farming methods, especially those that will increase food production of smallholder farmers in developing countries.
• Push for the cancellation of 100 per cent of outstanding debts of all 65 IDA (International Development Association) countries without economic policy conditions. Additionally, the G8 should investigate past lending to uncover and cancel all unjust debts, including illegitimate debts.
• Abolish in-kind food aid and replace it with multilateral or bilateral cash donations to purchase food at regional or local level, making more efficient use of scarce resources and supporting the development of local and regional markets. Increased emphasis on local purchases of food could also bolster efforts to establish local or regional reserves that could be accessed quickly in cases of food emergencies.