His voice is part of a chorus of criticism against mark-to-market accounting, which forces Banks to value assets at the estimated price they would fetch if sold now, rather than at historic cost.

The economic cost of hunger in terms of both resources needed to deal with its effects and the value of productivity and income losses is estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Depreciation is provided on a straight-line basis to write off the cost less estimated residual value of each asset over its estimated useful life.