A 47-percent rise in global food prices’ could give many Americans pause as Thanksgiving apporaches, but it is a full-blown disaster to the more than 200 million malnourished people in India and the steadily increasing number of people in Africa living on less than $1 a day.

Harvard University Waterhead Center for International Affairs associate Robert Paarlberg addressed 120 attendees Thursday at the Boston University School of Public Health about the future of the global health crisis in Africa that threatens the lives of more than 100 million people at ‘The Global Food Crisis: Starving on Surplus?’

‘Hunger is increasing rapidly and ominously,’ Paarlberg said. ‘If you’re trying to make a living as a farmer in this environment, there’s nothing idyllic about it.”

Challenging the notion of the food crisis as a global issue, Paarlberg, a Wellesley College political science professor, claimed that the crisis is heavily concentrated in two of the world’s continents: Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The increased international food market price spike caused people to believe there was a global crisis, but in reality, most of the world’s poverty remains contained in countries that do not rely on the international market.

‘Only 10 percent of calorie consumption relies on the world market,’ Paarlberg said.

In Africa, where 80 percent of chronically malnourished people live in rural areas, most African farmers lack genetically improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, veterinary medicines and electricity, he said.’

‘The international donor community led by the U.S. stopped providing assistance for agriculture modernization 20 years ago,’ Paarlberg said.’

Paarlberg provided three suggestions for aid in response to the food crisis. New investments in biotechnology, rural education and agriculture research and technology that would increase farming productivity for these countries.

A panel discussion followed Paarlberg’s lecture, featuring Partners In Health advocacy and policy manager Donna Barry and BU associate pediatrics professor John Cook.

Barry spoke on malnutrition issues in Haiti where 47 percent of the population is undernourished. Haiti has a high percentage of food dependency on the U.S., resulting in little incentive to the Haitians to improve their agricultural system, Barry said.

Cook defined hunger as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food. In terms of domestic hunger issues, global warming is its biggest challenger, Cook said.

‘Global climate change is the ultimate threat to children’s security and health in the U.S.,’ he said. ‘We have a window of just a few years, and if we don’t act fast, well, we’re courting disaster.”

School of Education second year graduate student Yumi Ujihara said she wished the speakers would have emphasized the impact of the crisis, rather than just providing numbers.

‘In Japan, our food price is going higher and higher,’ Ujihara said. ‘There are a lot of riots in’ t areas, but I didn’t see that impact shown.’

UPHA President Ben Schanker said before the meeting that he hoped this lecture would open BU students’ eyes about the issue.’

‘Having a conscience, especially around Thanksgiving, you realize how lucky you are,’ Schanker, a Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences senior, said.