The Biochar Fund works with the poorest of the poor. Our initial focus is on subsistence farmers living at the forest frontier of the Congo River Basin rainforest, the world's second largest and unique tropical forest. The vast forest stretches across six Central African countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon.

The communities living at the edge of the forest are by far the world's most food insecure. All the factors of the well known cylce of underdevelopment are present amongst them: low agricultural productivity leading to chronic hunger and generalised poverty, resulting in high fertility rates that increase pressures on the environment, leading to further poverty and chronic food insecurity.

The catastrophic dimensions of the problem become apparent when the undernourishment rate of the region is observed. In the DRC, one of our target countries where we have a trial site, no less than 71% of all people are undernourished - the world's highest rate. (The situation in the DRC is largely the result of ongoing political instability and decades of mismanagement; but then, lack of socio-economic development and in particular rural development are arguably some of the most important contributing factors that have led to this failed state's persistent instability.)

Key facts: hunger in the world 

• -Hunger is the world's most lethal health crisis, claiming 25,000 lives every day
  -854 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union
  -820 million people in developing countries alone are hungry - one in four lives in sub-Saharan Africa
  -More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women
• -The number of chronically hungry people worldwide is growing by an average of four million per year at current trends
• Source: FAO & The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006

Key facts: child hunger

• -Every five seconds a child dies because she or he is hungry
• Source: FAO State of Food Insecurity in the World 2006
  
• -Undernutrition in children under the age 18 affects an estimated 350 to 400 million children
• Source: Global Framework for Action, 2006
• -10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths
• Source: UNICEF
• -The cost of undernutrition to national economic development is estimated at US$20-30 billion per annum
• Source: Progress for Children, A report card on Nutrition, 2006
• -One out of four children - roughly 146 million - in developing countries are underweight
• Source: The State of the World’s Children 2007, UNICEF
  

Key facts: food & agricultural production

• -Approximately 75 percent of the 850 million undernourished people live in rural households in developing countries; hunger is mainly a rural problem 
• Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development
• -The concentration of hunger in rural areas suggests that no sustained reduction in hunger is possible without special emphasis on agricultural and rural development
• Source: FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006
  
• -Productivity-driven growth in agriculture can have a strong positive impact on the rural non-farm economy by boosting demand for locally-produced non-agricultural goods and by keeping prices low 
• Source: FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2006