So why is it that the number of hungry has steeply increased
over the past three years and reached an historic peak of about one
billion victims? Political obstacles and failures are the cause of
hunger, and are responsible for five million children dying from
hunger every year.
Among these challenges are wars and violent conflicts,
increasing inequity, discrimination, exploitation, corruption, and
ignorance of the urban elites toward rural development. They are
complemented by global market forces and international policies
fuelling and exacerbating these failures on a global level. These
forces and policies include unfair terms of trade and subsidies,
concentration of market power, speculation in land and commodities
as well as imposition of flawed economic and development strategies
by international financial institutions and foreign investment in
detrimental projects and ventures.
Farmers going Hungry
Most hungry people today actually live in countries that are
exporters of agricultural products. Over 70 percent of them live
in rural areas and about 50 percent are small-scale farmers,
especially in Asia and Africa.
In India, the total food available to each person actually
increased, but greater hunger prevailed because of the unequal
access to food and resources. The remarkable difference in China,
where the number of hungry dropped from 406 million to 189 million,
begs the question, "Which has been more effective in reducing
hunger, the Green Revolution or the Chinese revolution?"
There are 54 million people suffering malnutrition in the
region, while the amount of food produced is three times the amount
consumed. Hunger and malnutrition in Latin America and the
Caribbean are not the result of the inability to produce enough
food; therefore, increasing production will not solve the problem
of hunger and malnutrition in the region.
Fighting Hunger
World hunger is arguably the worst global assault on human
rights and dignity. It is a threat to peace and a source of
national instability, displacement, migration and violent conflict
and the most important impediment to social progress in the regions
affected. It is also a driver of environmental degradation and
depletion in many regions of the world.
Fortunately, the solution to ending world hunger is
straightforward and realistic. We must enable the rural poor to
produce sufficient and healthy food for their families, communities
and local markets by providing them with the basic means to do so:
access to land, water, know-how and education, human rights,
including gender equality, as well as access to minimum financial
means and regional markets.
You said a Mouthful: Hunger Quotes
over 45 Years
"So long as freedom from hunger is only half achieved, so long
as two-thirds of the nations have food deficits, no citizen, no
nation can afford to be satisfied. We have the ability, as members
of the human race, we have the means, we have the capacity to
eliminate hunger from the face of the earth in our lifetime. We
only need the will." --President J. F. Kennedy, World Food
Congress, Washington D.C., 1963
"The profound comment of our era is that for the first time we
have the technical capacity to free mankind from the scourge of
hunger. Therefore today we must proclaim a bold objective: that
within a decade no child will go to bed hungry, that no family will
fear for its next day bread and that no human being's future and
well being will be stunted by malnutrition." --Dr. Henry
Kissinger, World Food Conference, Rome, 1974
"We believe that it is indeed possible to end world hunger by
the year 2000. More than ever before, humanity possesses the
resources, capital, technology and knowledge to promote development
and to feed all people, both now and in the foreseeable future. By
the year 2000 all the world's people and all its children can be
fed and nourished. Only a modest expenditure is needed each year -
a tiny fraction of total expenditure which amounts to $650 billion
a year. What is required is the political will to put first things
first and to give absolute priority to freedom from
hunger." --FAO World Food Colloquium, 1992
"We pledge our political will and our common and national
commitment to achieving food security for all and to an ongoing
effort to eradicate hunger in all countries, with an immediate view
to reducing the number of undernourished people to half their
present level no later than 2015." --Rome Declaration on World
Food Security, World Food Summit, 1996
"We resolve further: To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion
of the world's people whose income is less than one dollar a day
and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the
same date, to halve the proportion of people who are unable to
reach or to afford safe drinking water." --United Nations
Millennium Declaration, New York, 2000
"We renew our global commitments made in the Rome Declaration at
the World Food Summit in 1996 in particular to halve the number of
hungry in the world no later than 2015, as reaffirmed in the United
Nations Millennium Declaration. We resolve to accelerate the
implementation of the WFS Plan of Action." --Declaration of the
World Food Summit: five years later, Rome, 2002
"We reaffirm the conclusions of the World Food Summit in 1996,
which adopted the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the
World Food Summit Plan of Action, and the objective, confirmed by
the World Food Summit: five years later, of achieving food security
for all through an ongoing effort to eradicate hunger in all
countries, with an immediate view to reducing by half the number of
undernourished people by no later than 2015, as well as our
commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs)." --Declaration of the High-Level Conference on World
Food Security, Rome, June 2008
"The 2000 Millennium Declaration aimed to halve the proportion
of the world population facing poverty and undernourishment by the
year 2015; the world is very far from reaching this goal according
to the alarming data provided by the relevant international
bodies.
"We reiterate our determination to defeat hunger and to ensure
access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food for present and
future generations." --Declaration of the G8 agricultural
ministers meeting, Cison di Valmarino, April 2009