Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future
© UNESCO 2010
MODULE 14: UNDERSTANDING WORLD HUNGER
INTRODUCTION
In his World Food Day 2000 message, the Director of the United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organisation said:
The scourges of hunger and poverty are morally unacceptable and have to be
defeated. Hunger and chronic malnutrition diminish human life. The lack of
physical or economic access to safe, nutritious and healthy food at all times
leads to negative consequences for peoples and nations.
Source: Diouf, J. (2000) World Food Day message.
The focus of the module is on the concept of ‘food security’ and strategies through
which this may be attained. As such, the module acts as an introduction to the study
of sustainable agriculture in Module 15.
The new understanding about population discussed in Module 13 indicated that older
traditional views about ‘over-population’ need to be reviewed. Uncritical views about
overpopulation are often associated with images of ‘famine’, ‘world hunger’ and ‘the
starving millions’. While these images can be tragically real in times of severe
drought, repression and war, they tend to create images of dependency that are not
always correct.
The relationship between hunger and population levels is not a simple one. For
example, population densities in the Netherlands and Singapore are among the
highest in the world but few people would say they are over-populated.
As a result, many people are asking questions like “What criteria should be used to
define overpopulation – and overpopulated in relation to what?” “Why are we growing
food for export when local people are hungry?” These questions indicate that we
need to take more account of the processes that cause hunger and famine. These
processes are also explained in this module.
OBJECTIVES
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To distinguish between the symptoms and the root causes of hunger and
population pressure on food resources;
To better understand perspectives from the South on issues related to
population, hunger and food security; and
To appreciate issues and dilemmas in teaching about population and hunger.
ACTIVITIES
1.
2.
3.
4.
Hunger and malnutrition in the world
The root causes of hunger
Food First Fundamentals
Towards food security for all
5. Reflection
REFERENCES
Boucher, D. (ed) (1999) Paradox of Plenty: Hunger in a Bountiful World, Institute for
Food and Development Policy/Food First, San Francisco.
Brown, L.R. (2005) Outgrowing the Earth. The Food Security Challenge in an Age of
Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures, Earthscan, London.
Delpeuch, F., Maire, B., Monnier, E. and Holdsworth, M. (2009) Globesity. A Planet
Out of Control? Earthscan
DeRose, L.F., Messer, E. and Millman, S. (1999) Who’s Hungry? and How Do We
Know?: Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation, United Nations University
Press.
Gardner, G. and Halweil, B. (2000) Underfed and Overfed: The Global Epidemic of
Malnutrition, Worldwatch Paper No.150, Worldwatch Institute.
Ingram, J., Ericksen, P. and Liverman, D. (eds) (2010) Food Security and Global
Environmental Change, Earthscan, London.
Lappe, F.M., Collins J., Rosset, P. and Esparza, L. (1998) World Hunger: Twelve
Myths, 2nd edition, Grove Press, New York.
Lawrence, G., Lyons, K. and Wallington, T. (eds) (2009) Food Security, Nutrition and
Sustainability, Earthscan, London.
Moorhead, A. (2009) Climate, agriculture and food security: A strategy for change,
CGIAR.
Runge, C.F., Senauer, B., Pardey, P.G. and Rosegrant, M.W. (eds) (2003) Ending
Hunger in Our Lifetime: Food Security and Globalization, International Food
Policy Research Institute and John Hopkins Universty Press.
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (2008) The State of Food
Insecurity in the World 2008, Food and Agricultural Organisation, Rome.
von Grebmer, K. et al. (eds) (2009) 2009 Global Hunger Index, International Food
Policy Research Institute.
Wright, J. (2008) Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security in an Era of Oil Scarcity,
Earthscan, London.
INTERNET SITES
Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger: A World Free From Hunger
Food and Agricultural Organisation: Sustainable Development
Institute for Food and Development Policy | Food First
New Agriculturalist On-line
Sustainable Food Security: Policies, Strategies and Case Studies
United Nations World Food Summit
CREDITS
This module was written for UNESCO by John Fien and Margaret Calder using
material originally written by John Fien for Teaching for a Sustainable World
(UNESCO – UNEP International Environmental Education Programme).
ACTIVITY 1: HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION IN THE
WORLD
Begin by opening your learning journal for this activity.
To be healthy and active, we must have food in adequate quantity, quality and
variety to meet our energy and nutrient requirements. Without adequate nutrition,
children cannot develop their potential to the fullest, and adults will experience
difficulty in maintaining or expanding theirs.
Not everyone has adequate access to the food they need, and this has lead to largescale hunger and malnutrition in the world. In 2009, more than one billion people
worldwide were considered to be undernourished; this means that one in every six
persons suffers from hunger every day. Around a quarter of all children under 5
years of age suffer from acute or chronic symptoms of malnutrition; during seasonal
food shortages and in times of famine and social unrest, this number increases.
According to some estimates, malnutrition is an important factor among the children
who die from preventable diseases and infections, such as measles, diarrhoea,
malaria and pneumonia.
The vast majority of the undernourished people live in Asia and the Pacific. This
region, which is home to 70% of the total population of the developing world,
accounts for almost two-thirds of the undernourished people. A quarter of the
undernourished are in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is also the region with the highest
proportion of its population undernourished.
THE HUNGER PROBLEM
The world produces more than enough food to provide everyone on Earth with a
healthy and nutritious diet.
Indeed, over-eating and obesity are now so common that, according to the
Worldwatch Institute report, the 1.1 billion people in the world who are overnourished and over-weight now almost rival the number who are under-nourished
and under-weight.
So, why is there such hunger in a world of plenty?
Many people believe that over-population is the major cause of hunger.
Q1:
Do you think that over-population is a cause of hunger in the world today?
What evidence supports your view?
Q2:
Do other people you know still believe that over-population is a cause of
hunger? What evidence do they use to support their views?
People around the world have many different views about the causes and effects of
population on food supply:
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Q3:
Sure it's important we protect the environment, but sustainable farming
has got to enough profit so that I can live.
Sustainable agriculture should maintain the vitality of our rural
communities, villages and small towns.
A futures perspective should be included in sustainable farming practices,
but we also need to listen to the wisdom of the past.
Sustainable agriculture should improve the quality of life for my family and
me.
Sustainable agriculture uses and consumes the free services of nature air, water and soil - to grow healthy food.
Protection and conservation of the natural environment is an important
part of sustainable agriculture.
How many of these people do you agree with? Classify their views in your
learning journal.
The contrasts between these views mean that teachers could face problems when
teaching about population and food issues: How can all viewpoints be presented
fairly? What should the teacher do when confronted with conflicting viewpoints on
controversial issues such as population and world hunger? Despite these questions,
many teachers think the reasons for teaching this topic far outweigh the problems.
Q4:
What do you think? Make a list of the reasons for and against teaching about
this topic.
ACTIVITY 2: THE ROOT CAUSES OF HUNGER
Some people say that population growth is the major cause of world hunger. Others
say it is population density not the actual numbers or growth rate that causes food
shortages. Some say that it is a shortage of land or not enough fertilizer that is the
problem. Sometimes, environmental disasters such as floods and drought are the
cause.
Read some case studies about cash crops being grown in the South for export to
markets in the North: coffee, and cocoa. These case studies provide an explanation
of the root causes of hunger in terms of world trade patterns. But world trade patterns
are only one of many possible explanations.
Depending upon our viewpoints, we will either agree or disagree with these different
explanations.
Analyse these ten explanations of hunger in the world. Do you think they are true or
false?
ACTIVITY 3: FOOD FIRST FUNDAMENTALS
Begin by opening your learning journal for this activity.
The statements in Activity 2 have been analysed by many people. Two United States
researchers, Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph Collins, have tested the statements
and the evidence about them – and came to the startling conclusion that every one of
them is false: that they are all myths of world hunger.
Lappe and Collins, continued their analysis of these issues and developed a set of
‘Food First Fundamentals’ or principles to guide solutions to many of the world’s
hunger problems. Indeed, they argue that these principles provide the basis for
agricultural policies that would guarantee an adequate and nutritional diet for
everyone in the world.
Each of the ‘Food First Fundamentals’ is matched to a myth. For example, from the
first myth, “People are hungry because of scarcity – both of food and land”, they
developed the Food First Fundamental: “Every country in the world has the
resources necessary for its people to free themselves from hunger”.
Match the Food First Fundamentals to their opposing myths.
Q5:
Identify one Food First Fundamental that you would like to see implemented in
your country – and give your reason.
Q6:
Identify one Food First Fundamental that you think would be very difficult to
implement in your country – and give your reason.
ACTIVITY 4: TOWARDS FOOD SECURITY FOR ALL
Begin by opening your learning journal for this activity.
Over the last century, remarkable progress was made in increasing the quantity and
quality of global food supplies and in improving the nutritional status of populations.
As global food supplies have kept pace with population growth, and health, education
and social services have improved throughout the world, the number of hungry and
malnourished has declined significantly. And yet, access to sufficient supplies of a
variety of safe, good-quality food remains a serious problem in many countries, even
where food supplies are adequate at the national level. In every country, some form
of hunger and malnutrition continues to exist.
Putting an end to hunger necessarily starts with ensuring that enough food is
produced and available for everyone. However, simply growing enough food does
not guarantee the elimination of hunger. Access by all people at all times to enough
nutritionally adequate and safe food for an active and healthy life – food security –
must be guaranteed.
However, rapid population growth makes it difficult for agricultural production to keep
pace with the rising demand for food. Most developing countries are already
cultivating virtually all their arable land and are bringing ever more marginal land
under cultivation.
“Unfortunately, population growth continues to outstrip food availability in many
countries,” reported Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO), at the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome. For
example, between 1985 and 1995, food production fell behind population growth in
64 of 105 developing countries studied by FAO. Among regions, Africa fared the
worst. Food production per person fell in 31 of 46 African countries and Africa now
produces nearly 30% less food per person than in 1967.
A 2002 FAO study into food production and population growth reported,
Globally there will be enough food for a growing world population by the year
2030, but hundreds of millions of people in developing countries will remain
hungry and many of the environmental problems caused by agriculture will
remain serious.
Source: FAO (2002) World agriculture: towards 2015/2030, Rome.
Satisfying the demand for food around the world requires a coordinated approach –
increasing agricultural production, improving food distribution, managing resources
and providing family planning. Education and health care are also essential to
improve people’s well-being and thus promote productivity and sustainable resource
use.
Concerns about shortfalls in agricultural production and inadequate food distribution
systems have focused attention on the concept of ‘food security’. According to FAO:
Food security is a state of affairs where all people at all times have access to
safe and nutritious food to maintain healthy and active life.
By this definition, about two billion people, or one person in every three, lack food
security. Either they cannot grow enough food for themselves, or they cannot afford
to purchase enough in the domestic marketplace. As a result, many people go
hungry and in severe cases, are starving. Many also suffer from nutritional
deficiencies in their diets.
The global economy produces enough food to feed the almost 7 billion people in this
world and even more, if it were distributed equitably. However, this food is not readily
available to many millions of people. Some countries produce more food than they
need for domestic use, while others do not produce enough to assure access to an
adequate diet for all of their people. Others may be very capable of doing so, but
their economies are locked into export agriculture as we saw in the case studies of
bananas, coffee and cocoa in Activity 2.
Thus, better distribution of food – both within and between countries – is an essential
component of food security.
Other strategies for improving food security were discussed at the 1996 World Food
Summit in Rome. Progress since this 1996 conference has been closely monitored
by the FAO.
Explore the four dimensions of the FAO programme for Sustainable Food Security:
People, Institutions, Knowledge and Environment.
Q7:
Make notes on these four dimensions in your learning journal.
According to FAO, there are many strategies for ensuring food security, including:
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Fair trade
Peace
Environmental protection
Sharing the wealth
Appropriate agriculture
Building community
Equal rights for women
Rediscovering forgotten foods
Land reform
A ‘blue revolution’.
Analyse the five strategies that you think would be most successful in helping to
ensure food security for everyone in the world?
ACTIVITY 5: REFLECTION
Begin by opening your learning journal for this activity.
Completing the module: Look back through the activities and tasks to check that you
have done them all and to change any that you think you can improve now that you
have come to the end of the module.
Q8:
What have been the most useful parts of this module for you? Why?
Q9:
Think of a class you teach. How could some of the ideas in this module be
used with this class?
Q10:
Analyse how you could use a Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger teaching unit for
a primary, intermediate or secondary class you teach.
Q11:
Identify any issues you might face in teaching about world hunger and food
security. How would you handle them? (Principles for teaching about
controversial issues are explored in Module 22.)
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is one of the prime causes of low birth weight babies (LBW) and poor
growth. LBW survivors are likely to suffer growth retardation and illness throughout
childhood, adolescence and into adulthood, and growth retarded adult women are
likely to carry on the vicious cycle of malnutrition by giving birth to LBW babies. Links
between malnutrition in early life – including the period of foetal growth – and the
development latter in life of chronic health conditions such as coronary heart disease,
diabetes, and high blood pressure are also emerging. Some 30 million infants are
born each year in developing countries with impaired growth due to poor nutrition in
the womb.
Malnutrition in the form of deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals continues
to cause severe illness or death of millions of people worldwide. More than 3.5 billion
people are affected by iron deficiency, 2 billion people are at risk of iodine deficiency
and 200 million pre-school children are affected by insufficient vitamin A. Iron
deficiency can result in growth retardation, low resistance to disease, long-term
impairment in mental and motor development and impaired reproductive functions; it
contributes to approximately 20% of pregnancy-related deaths. Iodine deficiency may
cause permanent brain damage, mental retardation, reproductive failure, decreased
child survival and goitre. In an expectant mother, iodine deficiency can produce
varying degrees of mental retardation in her infant. Vitamin A deficiency can result in
blindness or death among children; it contributes to decreased physical growth and
impaired resistance to infections, with consequent increased mortality in young
children.
Even mild forms of these deficiencies can limit a child’s development and learning
capacity early in life, which can lead to cumulative deficits in school performance,
resulting in higher school dropout rates and a high burden of illiteracy in our future
populations. Many of the most severe health consequences of these three leading
micronutrient deficiencies could be greatly alleviated by ensuring adequate food
supplies and varied diets that provide essential vitamins and minerals.
In many countries, health problems related to dietary excess are an ever-increasing
threat. Obesity in childhood and adolescence is associated with various health
problems, and its persistence into adulthood leads to health effects ranging from an
increased risk of premature death to several non-fatal but debilitating conditions that
affect productivity. These emerging problems are not just limited to developed
populations; an increasing number of developing countries are confronted with the
double burden of undernutrition and chronic diet-related disease. In addition, food
contamination from microbial agents, heavy metals and insecticides is a barrier to
nutrition improvement in every country of the world. Food-borne diseases are
common in many countries, and children are frequent victims, experiencing diarrhoea
leading to underweight and wasting, and high levels of child mortality.
Whether in their mildest or most severe form, the consequences of poor nutrition and
health result in a reduction in overall well-being and quality of life, and in the levels of
development of human potential. Malnutrition can result in productivity and economic
losses, as adults afflicted by nutritional and related disorders are unable to work;
education losses, as children are too weakened or sickly to attend school or to learn
properly; healthcare costs of caring for those suffering from nutrition-related
illnesses; costs to society of caring for those who are disabled and in certain
circumstances, their families as well.
Source: Adapted from Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger.
Exposing The Myths
Myth 1
People are hungry because of scarcity, both of food and land.
Scarcity cannot be considered the cause of hunger when even in the worst years of
famine there is always plenty of food in the world – enough in grain alone to provide
everyone in the world with 3000 to 4000 calories a day, not counting all the beans,
root crops, fruits, nuts, vegetables and non grain-fed meat?
And what about land scarcity?
We looked at the most crowded countries in the world to see if we could find a
correlation between population density and hunger. We could not. Bangladesh, for
example has just half the people per cultivated hectare that Taiwan has. Yet Taiwan
has no starvation while people in Bangladesh often experience food shortages.
China has more than twice as many people for each cultivated hectare as many
other countries. Yet in China people are not hungry.
Conversely, in Central America and in the Caribbean, where as much as 70% of the
children are undernourished, at least half of the agricultural land (and the best land)
grows crops for export – not food for the local people.
Myth 2
There are just too many people in the world. An exploding world
population means there is less food for everyone.
If ‘too many people’ cause hunger, we would expect to find more hungry people in
countries with more people per agricultural hectare. Yet we can find no such
correlation.
Countries with comparatively large amounts of agricultural land per person have
some of the most severe and chronic hunger in the world. While severe hunger is a
recurring problem for many people in Bolivia, for example, they live in a country with
well over one-half acre of cultivated land per person, significantly more than in
France. Brazil has more cultivated land per person then the United States. Mexico,
where many rural people have suffered from undernourishment, has more cultivated
land per person than Cuba, where now virtually no-one is underfed.
Rapid population growth often reflects people’s need to have many children in an
attempt to provide labourers to increase meagre family income, to provide old age
security and to compensate for the high infant death rate, the result of inadequate
nutrition and health care. Moreover, high birth rates reflect the social powerlessness
of women which is intensified by poverty.
Myth 3
Hunger will be overcome by concentrating on producing more
food.
Diagnosing the cause of hunger as scarcity inevitably leads to the conclusion that
increased production in itself will solve the problem. Techniques to boost production
have thus been the central thrust of the ‘war on hunger’ for at least 50 years.
Governments, international agencies and agribusiness corporations have promoted
‘modernisation’ – large-scale irrigation, chemical fertilisers, pesticides, machinery
and the seeds dependent on such inputs – all to make the land produce more. Such
farming practices have been labelled the ‘green revolution’.
But when a new agricultural technology enters a system where there are power
inequalities it tends to profit only those who already possess some combination of
land, money, ‘credit-access’ or political influence. This selectivity alone has excluded
most of the world’s rural population and all the world’s hungry.
Myth 4
To achieve food security the hungry world must rely on large land
holders.
Governments and international lending agencies have sometimes passed over the
small producer, believing that concentrating on large holders was the quickest road
to production gains. However, a study of 83 countries reveals that just over 3% of the
landholders control about 80% of the farmland. This gives some idea of how many of
the world’s farmers would be excluded by such a policy.
A study of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala found the
small farmer to be three to fourteen times more productive per hectare than the
larger farmer. In Thailand plots of one to two hectares yield almost 60% more rice
per acre than farms of 55 hectares or more. Other proof that justice for the small
farmer increases production comes from the experience of countries in which the
redistribution of land and other basic agricultural resources like water has resulted in
rapid growth in agricultural production: Japan, Taiwan, and China stand out.
Myth 5
We are faced with a tragic trade-off. A needed increase in food
production can come only at the expense of the ecological
integrity of our food base. Farming must be pushed onto marginal
lands at the risk of irreparable erosion. The use of pesticides will
have to be increased even if the risks are great.
Haiti offers a sad picture of environmental destruction. The majority of the farmers
cultivate the once-green mountain slopes in a desperate effort to grow food. Has
food production in Haiti used up every hectare of farm land so that only the mountain
slopes are left? No. Those seeking to farm the fragile slopes can only be seen as
exiles from their birthright – some of the world’s richest agricultural land. The rich
valley lands are in the control of a handful of elites (and their overseas partners)
whose concern is not food but dollars to pay for an imported lifestyle. These fertile
lands are thus made to produce largely low-nutrition crops (sugar, coffee, cocoa)
exclusively for export.
With the urgent need to grow more food, won’t we have to accept some level of harm
from deadly chemicals?
Nearly half the pesticides in the United States are used not on farmland, but on golf
courses, parks and lawns. The United States Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) estimates that some American farmers once used 50 million pounds of
pesticides and lost 7% of their crop before harvest. Today they use 12 times more
pesticides yet the percentage of the crop lost before harvest has almost doubled. In
the South, most pesticides are used for export crops, (principally cotton and to a
lesser extent for fruits and vegetables) grown under plantation conditions. The
quantities of pesticides injected into the world’s environment therefore have little to
do with the food needs of the hungry.
Myth 6
A developing country’s best hope for development is to export
crops in which it has a natural advantage and to use the earnings
to import food and industrial goods.
Export-orientated agricultural operations invariably import capital-intensive
technologies, such as chemical fertilisers and pesticides, to maximise, yields as well
as to meet the foreign markets’ ’beauty standards’ and processing specifications.
Basing an agricultural system on imported technologies helps ensure that whatever
is produced will be exported to pay the import bill – a vicious circle of dependency.
Export crops were mostly chosen by former colonial powers on the basis of what
would bring the greatest profit in the high-paying markets back home. The same land
now growing cocoa, coffee, rubber, tea, or sugar, could grow an incredible diversity
of nutritious crops – grains, high-protein legumes, vegetables, fruits and root crops.
Myth 7
Hunger is a contest between the Rich World and the Poor World.
Terms like ’hungry world’ and ’poor world’ make us think of uniformly hungry masses.
They hide the reality of hierarchical societies in which hunger afflicts the lower rungs
in both the North and the South.
The hungry all over the world are linked through a common threat: the tightening of
control over the most basic human need – food. The process of increasing
concentration of control over land and other productive resources that we have
identified as the direct cause of hunger in the South is also going on in the North.
Myth 8
Peasants are so oppressed, malnourished and conditioned into a
state of dependency that they are beyond the point of being able to
mobilise themselves.
This view ignores a fundamental reality in every country today. Because of the
selective way news is transmitted to us, we are often unaware of the courageous
struggle of millions of people everywhere to gain control over food-producing
resources.
Many who question what peasant farmers can do for themselves seem unaware that
people in many countries have, in our lifetimes, freed themselves from hunger
through their own efforts. Even during the worst years of war in the 1960s, the
Vietnamese were improving their agriculture. Yields were going up, and irrigation
was extended from 20% of the cultivated area in the mid-1950s to nearly 60%. The
Chinese people, formerly at the mercy of droughts and floods, have built reservoirs
and multiplied their irrigated land through a system based on local self-reliance and
local initiative. The Chinese now cultivate one third of all irrigated land in the world,
and have doubled their yields of major grains.
Myth 9
Hunger should be overcome by world trade redistributing food
from areas where there is a surplus to areas where there is a
shortage.
There is a problem in seeing trade as the solution to hunger. Distribution of food is a
reflection of the control of the resources that produce food. Whoever controls the
land determines who can grow food; what is grown; and where it goes.
Thus redistribution programmes cannot solve the problem of hunger. Instead we
must face up to the real question: how can people everywhere begin to democratise
the control of food resources?
Myth 10
To solve the problem of hunger we must increase food aid.
Increasing foreign aid budgets is a narrow view because direct assistance through
aid is only a small fraction of the total economic impact of international investments.
Of course, food aid is essential in times of emergency. However, it needs to be part
of a long-term strategy of agricultural reform – to help prevent famines from
recurring. This will require serious steps to redistribute control over food-producing
resources.
Source: Adapted from Lappe, F.M. and Collins J. (1998) World Hunger: Twelve
Myths, 2nd edition, Grove Press, New York.
FAO Strategies for Improving Food Security
Fair trade
The terms of international trade favour the North.
The rich world keeps the South wedded to commodity production by putting up tariff
barriers to manufactured goods. Barriers to textiles and clothing alone cost poor
countries $53 billion a year in lost trade – this equals the total of all Western aid to
the South. Ironically, maintaining poverty in the South means poor countries can buy
less of the manufactured goods the rich are so eager to supply.
There is no such thing as a ‘free’ market; what we have to strive for is one that is fair.
The first step is to become informed and make wise decisions as consumers and
investors. As citizens we can oppose unfair trade and voice that opposition to our
political leaders.
Environmental protection
Over-population in the South has often been blamed for ecological
catastrophe.
In fact, poor people have more at stake in preserving the resources they depend on.
It is short-sighted commercial exploitation by a few companies which is levelling the
world’s forests for commercial products such as timber, furniture and paper, or for
conversion of the land for growing commodities, plantation crops, narcotics or for
running livestock. Such practices supply the countries of the North with consumer
goods while leaving all the environmental and social costs in the South.
To preserve a common future the environment must take priority. We can help by
encouraging environmentally sensitive commodity production and questioning our
own consumption.
Appropriate agriculture
There is no quick fix for areas with food shortages – the answers for
each region are specific to it.
The Green Revolution was often hijacked by rich elites who priced small farmers out
of the market. In many countries commercial farming, propped up with subsidies,
continues apace with its arsenal of polluting chemicals, its pesticide-resistant pests
and declining yields. The real answers lie elsewhere, with the farmers who make the
best use of their lands, fighting pests with natural biological control methods, growing
a variety of crops to keep the soil fertile, and by saving the best seeds for future
crops. In order for their efforts to succeed they must be able to make their own
decisions. Too often governments, agribusiness companies and policy makers, on
the other side of the globe, control the agriculture agenda.
Equal rights for women
Women inherit every disadvantage and none of the power.
Yet, they do most of the farming in many parts of the world. They work more hours
than men – yet 70% of the world’s adult poor are women. Four hundred million
women of child-bearing age weigh less than 45 kilograms – their poor health is a
major contributing factor in the health problems suffered by their children. The best
way to attack women’s hunger is by improving access to fairly-paid work and to land.
In ‘developed’ countries many women earn half as much as men. Often their work
may not even be counted as work. Women produce half the world’s food but own
only 1% of its farmland. Education also improves women’s control over their fertility,
health and standard of living.
Land reform
A billion people living in the villages of the South have no land of their
own to farm.
Two-thirds of them live in India and Bangladesh. In Guatemala and Peru 85% of rural
workers are landless. Wherever the problem exists there is usually a history of
unsuccessful land-reform movements – thwarted by the landowning elites with
political power and connections. Giving land to poor farmers so they can grow their
own food would not be successful on its own. Redistribution of land would have to be
implemented alongside improved access to credit and the means of production, like
machinery. But land reform could create the jobs which poor people from rural areas
seek in city slums.
Peace
War causes hunger.
Conflict robs people of homes and livelihoods – refugees have no land to grow food
and no work to enable them to buy it. In 1994 the total world military budget was
$767 billion – more than the total income of the poorest 45% of the world’s
population. The ‘peace dividend’ has yielded $935 billion since 1987 through reduced
arms spending, but very little of it has gone towards international development aid –
which is constantly falling as a percentage of GDP. We need to lobby our leaders to
work for peace and to use its dividends wisely.
Greater stability would give poorer nations the opportunity to reduce their own
military expenditure.
Sharing the wealth
More than a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.
The wealthiest one-fifth of the world’s people control about 86% of the money, the
poorest fifth about 1.4%. Free markets and free trade cannot create opportunities for
poor people when the real need is for fair trade and fair markets. Super-rich
individuals apart, the politics of greed makes no economic sense for the wealthy
countries that pursue it. Economic success in the South would mean increased trade
and more, rather than less, jobs in the North. By sharing wealth we could actually be
safeguarding it.
Building community
Inequality is not just about economics, it is about moral choice.
We need to replace the harmful myth of the importance of individual financial
success – so important to modern imperialism – with the idea of the individual within
a community. People aware of their connectedness with other people, species and
environments can build both compassion and strength. Many poor communities with
little to spare are working towards this ideal – whether it’s poor women running
communal soup kitchens in Peru and Bolivia, or farmers across Latin America
involved in a programme to share their knowledge with each other.
Rediscovering traditional foods
Another way to help make up for food shortages is to recognise the
wisdom of traditional peoples and their knowledge of locally available
food resources.
Amaranths and quinoa, two crops traditionally grown in Peru and Mexico are
examples. Both grains are versatile, well adapted to local soils and climatic
conditions, and provide more high-quality protein than most commercial grains,
including rice, wheat and corn.
A ‘blue revolution’
The world needs a ‘blue revolution’.
The World Commission on Rivers reported in 1999 that more than half the world’s
major rivers are going dry or are severely polluted. Contamination of rivers and river
basins displaced 25 million environmental refugees in 1998 – for the first time
exceeding the 21 million refugees from armed conflicts around the world. Based
upon United Nations projections, 4 billion people will be affected by water shortages
by 2050. By then, Nigeria, for example, will have only about 900m³ of water per
person compared with 3200m³ per person in 1990 (nearly a 75% reduction in
available water).
Governments and communities need to develop plans for managing rivers at the
catchment or watershed scale and involve local people in their and implementation.