17% of foreign aid to agriculture in 1980; 4% by 2000
Agriculture was once a pillar of international aid programs, with World Bank figures showing that it constituted 17 percent of all foreign assistance in 1980, said Christopher Delgado, the bank’s agriculture adviser. But the emphasis declined as the number of hungry people dropped to its lowest recent level, 825 million people, around 1996. By 2000, agriculture aid had shrunk to 4 percent, he said, although it has since ticked up slowly.NEIL MacFARQUHAR, Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow, New York Times, October 21, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/22food.html?_r=2