Directions for this essay
Read the controversy below and answer all three questions. Turn your on
the day of the exam.
Your essay should have 12-point font.
It needs be at least one page in length and no longer than two.
Will the World Starve?
The animals’ feet leave their prints on the desert’s face.
Hunger is so real, so very real, that it can make you walk
around a barren tree looking for nourishment. Not once, not
twice, not thrice . . .
These lines, by Indian poet Amit Jayaram, describe the appalling
hunger found in Rajasthan, in northwest India. As chapter 12 has explained,
however, hunger casts its menacing shadow not only over Asia but also over
much of Africa, as well as Latin America, and even North America.
Throughout the world, hundreds of millions of adults do not eat enough food
to enable them to work. Most tragically, some 10 million children die each
year as a result of hunger. As we begin the twenty-first centuries, what are
the prospects for ending the wretched misery of daily hunger?
Pessimists point out that the population of poor countries is increasing
by 73 million people annually—equivalent to adding another Egypt to the
world every year. Poor countries can scarcely feed the people they have
now; how will they feed twice as many people a generation in the future?
In addition, hunger forces poor people to exploit the Earth’s resources
by using short-term strategies for food production, which leads to long-term
disaster. For example, farmers are cutting rain forests in order to increase
their farmland; but without the protective canopy of trees, it is only a matter
of time before much of the land turns to desert. Taken together, rising
population and shortsighted policies raise the specter of unprecedented
hunger, human misery, and political calamity.
But there are also some grounds for optimism. Thanks to the Green
Revolution, food production the world over has increased sharply during the
last fifty years, well outpacing the growth in population. The world’s
economic productivity has risen steadily, so that the average person on the
planet now has more income to purchase food and other necessities than
ever before. This growth has also increased daily caloric intake, life
expectancy, access to safe water, and adult literacy, around the world infant
mortality is half of what it was in 1960.
So what are the prospects of eradicating world hunger? Overall, we
see less hunger in both rich and poor countries, and a smaller share of the
world’s people are hungry now than in 1960. But as global population
increases, with 96 percent of children born in middle and low-income
countries, the number of lives at risk is as great today as ever before. Thus,
many low-income countries have made solid gains, but more are stagnating
or even losing ground.
The best-case region of the world is eastern Asia, where incomes,
controlled for inflation, have tripled over the last generation. It is to Asia
that optimists in the global hunger debate point for evidence showing that
poor countries can and do raise living standards and reduce hunger. The
worst-case region of the world is sub-Sahara Africa, where living standards
have fallen over the last decade. It is there that high technology is least
evident and birth rates are highest. Pessimists typically look to Africa when
they argue that poor countries are losing ground in the struggle to feed the
people.
Television brings home the tragedy of hunger when news cameras
focus on starving people in places like Ethiopia and Somalia. But hunger—
and early death from illness—is the plight of millions all year round. The
world has the food to feed everyone; the question is whether we have the
moral determination.
Answer these questions. . .
1. In your opinion, what are the primary causes of global hunger?
2. Do you place more responsibility for solving this problem on poor
countries or rich ones? Why?
3. Do you more closely relate to the modernization theory or to the
dependency theory concerning global hunger and do you consider yourself
an optimist or a pessimist in understanding this issue? Why?