Every Day, One in Five of the World S Population Some 800 Million People Go Hungry

Every Day, One in Five of the World’s Population – Some 800 Million People – Go Hungry

At the beginning of the 21st century, when the rich world is enjoying the benefits of scientific and medical research and looking forward to long, prosperous lives, it is difficult to comprehend why so much of the world’s population should still go hungry.

The statistics tell of a problem of immense proportions. Eight million go hungry every day. Two billion people suffer from chronic malnutrition. Eighteen million die each year from hunger-related diseases. Two billion people suffer from micro-nutrient deficiencies, which lead to chronic health problems. Around half of the deaths of children under five (10 million each year) are associated with malnutrition. Famines occur where there is an acute an extreme shortage of food for a large number of people, but hunger can persist over many years and its long-term effects can be just as devastating. The World health organization (WHO) says that hunger and malnutrition are among the most serious problems facing the world’s poor.

And yet, incredibly, this is not caused by food shortages. The world produces enough food each year to feed all of its inhabitants: if it were shared out evenly, everyone would have enough to eat. Nutritionists consider that a health y diet provides 2500 calories of energy a day. In the USA, the average person consumes 3600 calories a day. In Somalia, they get 1500.

Food production has kept pace with global demand, and prices for staple foods like rice and other cereals have fallen. So why are so many still suffering?

The Nobel-Prize winning economist Amartya Sen is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the causes of hunger. He notes that hunger is caused not by a country’s inability to produce food but by a lack of income. Poor people have no money to secure constant food supply, and no resources to grow their own food.

Professor Sen argues that political circumstances are often to blame. Famines may threaten the existence of a democratic government, but where democracy is absent or compromised, the government will often lack the motivation to tackle the problem. ‘Indeed, as a country like Zimbabwe ceases to be a functioning democracy,’ Professor Sen writes, ‘its earlier ability to avoid famines in very adverse food situations (for which Zimbabwe had an excellent record in the 1970’s and 1980’s) becomes weakened. A more authoritarian Zimbabwe is now facing considerable danger of famine.’

Armed conflict also places a major strain on food security. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that of eighteen African countries facing food emergencies in 2001, eight were involved in conflict and a further three were suffering its aftereffects. In times of war, a government will divert resources away from food production in favor of the military effort. Food distribution and transport networks are disrupted, and where an area is under dispute it may be too dangerous for subsistence farmers to tend their land. In Rwanda in 1995, war displaced three out of four farmers and cut the harvest in half.

Hunger is also, curiously, used as a tool of war. One side may try to starve the other into submission, seizing or destroying food stocks and diverting food aid from the needy to the armed forces. Lands may be mined or water sources polluted. In the aftermath of conflict, it is difficult or impossible for communities to rebuild their food sources. Armed violence in Western and Southern Africa and Central America has left generations of young people without any farming skills at all – the only reality they knew was conflict, so the only training they have is in the art of fighting.

This disappearance of traditional farming techniques is also happening n areas hit hard by the HIV/AIDS crisis. Malnutrition has been linked to an earlier onset of AIDS symptoms after HIV infection, and it increases the likelihood of opportunistic infection – thus further shortening the lifespan of the sufferer. In a family where one or both parents is sick, the family will lose valuable income and may be forced to sell assets like livestock, in order to pay for healthcare and burials. Some societies do not allow widows to inherit land, so it may be lost to the family. Young children may be forced to leave school in order to work or care for sick relatives. The specialized knowledge that parents may have hoped to pass on to their children may be lost.

Where a country is already weakened by epidemics or war, natural phenomena like droughts or floods become far more difficult to overcome. Corruption, mismanagement and bad government mean that the country may lack funds to import food when it’s needed – so a food shortage can quickly turn into a famine.

Having enough to eat is a basic human right, and hunger is a huge impediment to development. People who have enough to eat can work better and generate more income. One study in Sierra Leone showed that, on average, a 50 per cent increase in calories per farm worker would increase agricultural output by 16.5 per cent.

So how to achieve this? There are huge surpluses of food in the rich West – so much so, in fact, that food is sometimes destroyed in order to keep prices buoyant. A lot of surplus food is sent to poorer countries as aid, but agencies are well aware that this does not constitute a long-term solution. The key is to change the factors that led to the poverty in the first place: by raising the average income in a region so that hungry people, and in turn their governments, can buy what they need.

In Afghanistan, for example, aid agencies are helping to feed a population ravaged by two decades of war and a severe drought. Some of it has involved distributing food donated by the West, but other initiatives have produced seeds, tools and fertilizer for farmers to grow their own crops. These efforts, coupled with better weather and pest control, meant that the 2003 harvest was forecast to be 50 percent bigger than the year before. But Christian Aid expressed strong concerns that the UN was still sending massive wheat shipments to the region, causing prices for locally grown wheat to plummet and farmers to turn to more lucrative crops – like opium. The key is not to make countries dependant on handouts, if at all possible; instead, the international community should help guide hunger-stricken societies towards a degree of self-sufficiency. As hunger decreases, the country’s income will rise, and it will be better able to cope with food shortages in the future.

But even that path is complicated. African nations are currently debating the role that genetically modified food should play in the fight against hunger. The US has suggested that high yield GM crops could help the fight against hunger by raising farmers’ incomes. There are even suggestions that genetically modification could invent crops that might target micro-nutrient deficiencies. Some countries have enthusiastically welcomed the prospects of GM food aid while others have declared it ‘poison’. There are certainly long-term issues to consider here, but not just the possible effects of GM food on consumers and the environment, but about the culture of dependence that it could create. Poorer countries would become more reliant on developed countries and large multinational companies to supply the GM technology that they cannot afford themselves.

One of the most important factors in reducing hunger is thought to be education. The FAO estimates that some 300 million poor children in the world do not attend school or do not receive a meal during the school day. Basic education is the most effective development tool there is. In countries with adult literacy rates of 40 percent, per capita Gross Domestic product (GDP) averaged %210; where the rate was at least 80 percent, per capita GDP was $1000 or more. Girls who do go to school marry later and have fewer children. Farmers have a minimum of four years education are up to 10 percent more productive.

The World Food Summit in 1996 set a target of cutting the world’s hunger in problem in half by 2015. To do that, the number of hungry people needs to fall by 33 million every year – currently; it is only falling by 6 million a year. Progress needs to be accelerated. In 2003, The World Food Programme noted that contributions to its fund were not keeping pace with the demand for food aid. In 2003, it needed $4.3 billion to feed 110 million people around the world, and contributions fell short by $600 million (or nearly 15 percent).

Global bodies like the WHO are urging the world to recognize that proper nutrition and health are fundamental human rights. Combating hunger will allow poorer nations to carve a path towards development. Director –general Emeritus of the WHO, Gro Harlem Brundtland, urged that a ‘strong human rights approach is needed to bring on board the millions of people left behind by the 20th century’s health revolution”.

Article 25(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) asserted that ‘everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food’. The human rights approach puts the primary responsibility on governments to do everything possible to ensure people have access to food. But we all have a responsibility to remember the scale of this problem. We can support charities working to promote food security, and we can urge our governments to do what they can to help – and that includes pressuring them to honor aid commitments.

The victims of famines may occasionally make it onto the front pages or news bulletins, but most victims of hunger go unnoticed. Hunger affects the poor, the powerless. It’s a complex problem that requires a huge international effort. We are all responsible, but we can all do something about it.

Williams, Jessica. (2007). 50 facts that should change the world. United Kingdom:

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