Many myths persist when it comes to general perceptions on world hunger. The sections below attempt to shed some light on the complex web of issues collectively known as hunger.
Is there enough food?
Some experts have claimed that the earth seems to be coming to the end of its natural resources, productivity has reached its limit, grain production is drying up. Yet the population of the world continues to increase.
Are we going to die of hunger? NO. The growth curve of food availability in the world continues to be higher than the increase in population, even in developing countries. True, grain production has leveled off. However, this cannot be explained by ecological factors:
- Rich countries have chosen voluntarily to limit their production to avoid costly overproduction, which would cause the price of grain to plummet throughout the world and oblige the rich countries to pay a substantial amount in aid to farmers.
- In developing countries, the food supply is increasing, though this expansion is tending to move towards products other than cereals. With an improved standard of living, the consumption of vegetables, meat, and milk is increasing.
- Yield exceeds 40 tons per hectare (2.47 acres) in rich countries, but does not even reach one-third of this figure in most developing countries. There is therefore considerable room for increase in production, aided by expansion of irrigation. Thus a new "rice miracle" in Asia should enable the best land to increase its yield from 10 to 15 tons per hectare within a decade.
- In rich countries, some of the land is deliberately not cultivated for economic reasons. In developing countries, the surface presently cultivated (700 million hectares) could, according to the FAO, be doubled in the coming years, without affecting forests or protected areas or inhabited lands. These reserves can be found mainly in Africa and Latin America, but even in Asia there is still land available.
The world's population will not continue to increase indefinitely: Experts agree that it will stabilize at around 11.5 billion people towards the year 2150. With the average number of children per woman decreasing, even Africa and the Middle East have now committed themselves to embarking on this demographic transition.
The challenge as regards food production is not so much to predict whether the curve of agricultural production will perpetually follow the population curve, but rather to know whether the earth has the means to feed a maximum of 12 billion people. The land and yield reserves suggest that it does. BUT this relatively optimistic picture of the world food situation must take into account two major conerns:
- Pollution is growing. The highest level of productivity is achieved at a price, with large-scale use of fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation, all of which can exhaust soils. That is why agronomists are giving more and more thought to a "doubly green" revolution, which, by using the most advanced scientific research, should allow for increased agricultural production in the most delicate environments, while at the same time respecting the ecosystems' capacity for regeneration and helping the poor to feed themselves.
- Because food production is adjusted to what consumers can afford, a large number of poor people throughout the world do not have enough food since no one will pay for its production.
Therein lies the real challenge as regards food at the end of this century: How do we make sure that the most vulnerable have access to an adequate food supply?
Who suffers from hunger?
If food was evenly distributed,
each human being would have plenty to eat. However,
845 million people throughout the world do not have enough to eat (2006 UNFAO). The number of victims of malnutrition has been decreasing over the last thirty years:
- In 1970, there were almost one billion victims. In developing countries, one inhabitant in three did not get enough to eat.
- In 1996, the 750 million victims of malnutrition represented one in six of the same population.
What is the global distribution of hunger?
Three quarters of those suffering from malnutrition are from rural areas, and one quarter are city dwellers living in the shanty towns of big cities in poor countries.
Over 524 million victims of malnutrition live in Asia and 206.2 million in sub-Saharan Africa, the principal areas of malnutrition (2006 UNFAO).
The number of victims of malnutrition has fallen worldwide, except for Africa where policies hostile to agriculture and particularly the frequency of conflicts striking the civilian populations, explain the continuing extent of hunger:
- although the African population represents less than 15% of the world's population, it has almost one quarter of the world's victims of malnutrition.
- out of the 12 million refugees throughout the world, most of whom depend on food aid to survive, a quarter are in Africa.
- out of the 25 million displaced people throughout the world (i.e. those who have had to leave their homes and their land have often lost everything and could not reach a border, thus were unable to benefit from international protection), half are in Africa.
While the development of a country is almost always accompanied by a decrease in the number of victims of malnutrition, hunger has nonetheless reappeared in the West, as a result of poverty and exclusion. The same is true in Eastern Europe and in the former USSR, where the end of socialist regimes resulted in the collapse of collective agriculture which had formerly been protected by subsidies. Added to this, the acute vulnerability of elderly people, whose income has collapsed with the liberalization of the economy, is clearly evident.
What is the difference between famine and hunger?
Although they both primarily affect those known as risk populations - children under five, pregnant and lactating women, the elderly and the sick, famine and malnutrition should not be confused, as they have different causes, different consequences and are not equally serious.
Famine is a state of acute hunger, with a total lack of food supplies for entire populations which will inevitably result in death if nothing is done to help them. Famine affects people whose only 'wrong' is to find themselves involved in conflicts where hunger is increasingly being used as a political weapon.
Somalia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Angola, South Sudan, Great Lakes regions - the famines in all these countries in the last decade have been the result of violent conflicts, with thousands of refugees or displaced persons who are always the first victims of hunger.
Malnutrition, by comparison, is "silent hunger". It is possible to be malnourished without feeling hungry, if one's food supply is poorly balanced both in terms of quantity and quality and prevents normal activities. Although they do have food to eat, millions of human beings suffering from malnutrition are deprived of certain vitamins and substances which are vital for their development. Although malnutrition is a phenomenon which is widespread in the Third World, its consequences are not as dramatic as those of a famine. It can be fought with development programs, aimed at increasing agricultural production and at improving health and eating habits.
Why does hunger persist?
Is hunger a demographic problem?
No. There is no link between population density and an area's level of nutrition. The people who suffer most from hunger are not necessarily living in the most densely populated countries. Java, in Indonesia, for example, is densely populated but its population is well fed due to the island's dynamic agriculture and high yields. Conversely, people are dying of hunger in vast, scarcely populated countries. The adequacy of an area's nutrition depends on the incentives for agricultural production and on whether the economy is sufficiently diversified or going through a period of recession. The issue is not the number of human beings but rather the way they use the environment in which they live. Paradoxically, high population density has often led to agricultural innovations that have resulted in an increased yield and thus a higher level of nutrition.
Is hunger a problem of distribution?
Yes. Hunger persists not because it is related to a problem of food availability, but rather of equitable distribution. Even when a country has excess food production, some populations may not have access to healthful nutrition. This is the case, for example, in Brazil, which is one of the world's major exporters of cereals, and in India, which, although it is self-sufficient in terms of food, has nearly three times as many malnourished citizens (more than 200 million) as the whole of sub-Saharan Africa (70 million).
Is hunger a consequence of poverty?
Yes. Malnutrition primarily affects the poor:
- because they do not produce sufficient food to meet their needs,
- because they are too poor to buy food,
- because their education is insufficient to prevent them from making serious errors concerning nutrition, especially for their children - unsuitable food, abrupt weaning, diarrhea that is either left untreated or improperly treated.
Is hunger used as a political weapon?
Yes. Famine is no longer a result of natural disaster. The map of great famines exactly matches that of wars. In fact, climatic events leading to droughts are often forecast months in advance, and the world has ample time to prevent food shortages by dispatching food to the most vulnerable populations. So today famines always occur in situations of unrest where some parts of the population are denied access to food. The combination of war and climatic problems, the impossibility of delivering aid to victims who are blocked by people exploiting famine situations for financial gain, are all factors that explain famine.
Famines have become a preferred weapon in modern conflicts: They can be deliberately created, exposed, or even be denied.
Deliberately created famines
The basic operating dynamic during deliberately created famines forces civilian populations into towns where they cannot gather food from the fields. As a result, they starve to death. Artificially created famines are "useful" because:
- they call in humanitarian aid which can then be hijacked by armed forces
- they acquire a political legitimacy by prioritizing international recognition over access to victims.
Recently affected countries include Angola, where insecurity and landmines have prevented civilians from returning to the fields for harvests, and Liberia and Sierra Leone, where armed factions use hunger to sustain the war effort.
Often a government deliberately leaves the population of one region to die of starvation so as to arouse international compassion. This occurs regardless of the fact that the government has at its disposal all the material and financial resources necessary to save those who do not have enough food. Causing such famines can be "useful" in that:
- the famines succeed in freeing a country from a prejudicial situation, for example by lifting an embargo (as happened in Iraq)
- they attract humanitarian aid that can compensate populations for economic miscalculations (e.g., North Korea).
The waging of concealed famines
Many famines are purposely exacerbated for political ends. Although the initial cause of the outbreak of famine in a region may be natural - such as a lack of rainfall - the government of the affected country might then refuse to declare a state of emergency or accept aid, thus preventing assistance from reaching victims and creating a disaster that could easily have been avoided.
Some governments therefore find it "useful" to conceal such famines from international attention in order to get rid of ethnic, political,or religious minorities, as in:
- Chad: which refused to admit, at the beginning of 1996, that there was a famine in Kanem because reserve stocks had been squandered a few months before the presidential elections
- China: where according to official propaganda, everything is running smoothly except that nobody knows precisely what is happening in the peripheral mountainous provinces
- Kenya: in 1992 Kenya refused to admit that famine was affecting populations originating from North Eastern Somalia, until the situation became impossible to deny
- Sudan: which diverted international attention away from an obvious disregard for human rights and a disastrous economic management.
What can be done?
Faced with the use of hunger as the preferred weapon of modern conflict, humanitarian organizations have a duty to react and to take action to prevent human beings from dying as a result of human insanity. They have the means to prevent this tragedy, because they represent a shield against hunger, but only if they react quickly and effectively.
Taking Action Against Hunger
Famines Are Not Inevitable
Before thousands of human lives are wiped out by famine, it is vital to alert the international community to the necessity of delivering humanitarian aid to conflict areas. In 1992-93, when many countries in Africa were affected by drought, famine could have been avoided if aid had been delivered there and distributed in time. Instead, the Horn of Africa was devastated by famine, as the alert was given too late. The governments delayed reaction and the war prevented humanitarian aid from reaching victims.
Effective Action is Informed Action
Taking effective action means providing targeted assistance for populations at risk, creating the right conditions for the successful implementation of relief operations, and preventing their being diverted in support of the war economy. That is why, before intervening, Action Against Hunger insists that certain guarantees be met:
- free access to victims, since any intermediary structure between the humanitarian team and those who are dying of hunger may mean that the starving do not receive the help they require.
- direct distribution to victims of hunger without intermediaries. Free access to them is not possible without complete control of the aid program: food must be passed directly from the assistance teams to beneficiaries without delay.
- full control of implementation, targeting at risk populations, efficient treatment protocols with specially adapted food. One month in therapeutic feeding centres is then essential to provide treatment for countless number of emaciated children who have fallen victim to famine.
- after famine, programs aiming at allowing populations to reconstitute their livelihoods through the distribution of seeds and tools and/or livestock. These programs are also designed to fortify the local food economy, for example, by providing hydro-agricultural equipment, through soil conservation programs, or by providing support for the marketing of products.
Throughout all of its programs, Action Against Hunger strives to integrate long term sustainability with emergency relief.
Testifying & Advocacy
Populations which have fallen victim to hunger are not just one of the "inevitable results" of modern conflicts. In fact many of these conflicts have political intent, with their principal aim being the sacrifice of populations. Hunger is one of the favored weapons to achieve this.
With strategies to prevent hunger, humanitarian organizations have the means to prevent the tragedy of the deaths of thousands of human beings, particularly children. Advocacy allows humanitarian organizations to alert the media and to mobilize the international community so as to put an end to such manipulation. When governments deliberately refuse to let victims be saved, it is the duty of the UN and other NGOs to disclose their plans for action.
During the last few years, Action Against Hunger has mobilized to denounce:
- the refusal of free passage of aid into Mogadishu (Somalia), to victims of the civil war in South Sudan, to enclaves and displaced populations or refugees in Bosnia, Burundi, Angola and Liberia. In all these countries, populations have been deliberately forced into starvation, because government or rebel armed forces have created an obstacle to the transportation of humanitarian convoys to victims. In all of these countries, Action Against Hunger is leading a concerted action along with other aid agencies and has been able to relieve the worst situations, allowing thousands of victims to be saved.
- attacks on food convoys and hijacks by armed militia. The result of such confiscation is that the most needy do not benefit from the relief supplies. They are instead diverted to soldiers, city dwellers or dominant clans. In Somalia, Liberia, Burundi and Bosnia, humanitarian teams have made every effort to prevent this organized pillage.
Dec. 5, 2007
Nov. 7, 2007
