Download World Hunger: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions and more Study notes Humanities in PDF only on Docsity! LECTURE 8 - WORLD HUNGER How many suffer from food insecurity? • 1.2 BILLION PEOPLE LIVE IN POVERTY (23% of the world population) • 800 million suffer from food insecurity. • Living standards declined during the past 20 years. Why? • Environmental decline • Population growth • Lower export earnings • Rising inflation • Higher interest rates on foreign debts • In other words, the poor earned less and paid more…. Chronic hunger occurs in more than 80 nations: They can neither produce enough food to feed their populations nor earn enough foreign exchange to import adequate food. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH POVERTY AND HUNGER? Colonialism Western nations colonized Africa & Asia to gain access to their raw materials: Minerals, cash crops, wealth. At the same time they disrupted traditional family structures and the ability to produce their own food. Eg. Chad recently had a record cotton crop; that same year, it experienced famine. International Trade & Debt Combination of high import costs and low export profits pushes a developing country into debt. Multinational Corporations Fertile farmlands are taken over by large landowners and multinational corporations. Thus: • Indigenous people are hired at below-subsistence wages; • They grow crops to be exported for profit; • There's little fertile land for local farmers to grow food for themselves. RESULTS: Africa is a net exporter of barley, beans, peanuts, vegetables, cattle, coffee, cocoa, etc. At the same time, its children have a higher incidence of protein-energy malnutrition than anywhere else in the world. Overpopulation Current world population is approximately 6 billion - and increasing! In countries where economic growth has occurred and everybody shares resources relatively equally, the rate of population growth has decreased. Land Reform Land reform would allow people to produce food for local consumption. Instead of food aid, poor nations must be allowed to develop self-reliance and to increase their agriculture productivity. That means gaining access to land, capital, water, technology & knowledge. Technology (Green Revolution) High-tech agriculture is costly to developing countries: Seeds developed during the "Green Revolution" often require irrigation, fertilizers & pesticides. Must use appropriate technology in developing countries: labor intensive rather than energy intensive.
