Some 49 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean — eight per cent of the population — do not get enough food, a slight improvement over previous years, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization said Thursday.

The number of hungry people across Latin America and the Caribbean has been dropping since 2004, but the latest figures represent a slowing of this promising trend, the FAO regional office in Santiago said in its report.

The report said sustained economic growth in the region over the last decade “has not translated into a decrease in the vulnerability of a significant portion of the population of the continent.”

The agency also stressed that the rise in food prices and the global financial crisis had threatened food security among the poorest households, who spend large shares of their income on food.

Between 2004 and 2006, the agency counted 54 million people “who were not ingesting the daily calories needed for a healthy life,” the report said.

From 2007 to 2009, that number had fallen by four million, but the latest figures show a drop of just one million hungry people since 2009.

According to the FAO, the problem is not “insufficient production or lack of food supply, except during a disaster.” Instead, “a significant section of the population does not have sufficient income.”

The countries most affected by hunger are Haiti, with nearly 45 per cent of the population suffering, Guatemala, with 30 per cent, Paraguay, with 26 per cent, Bolivia, with 24 per cent and Nicaragua at 20 per cent.

In contrast, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela “have managed to eradicate the scourge of hunger,” the FAO wrote, while others, including the Dominican Republic and Haiti, have slowed its spread.