Myths About Hunger It is a popular notion that the main cause for world hunger is a lack of food. That thought contains a basket of truth, but a bushel of deception. Of course hunger and famine are the result of not getting enough volume or quality of food to support life, but that is not a foundational reason for the problem. The myths about hunger are well documented in several sources. In his article “The Famine Myth,” Dr. Leslie Jermyn of GlobalAware.org wrote, “Famine is a situation of chronic lack of food leading to eventual starvation and death for thousands or millions depending on the scale. It is not the result of singular causes like low rainfall or too many mouths to feed but results from a long series of social, political and economic processes and policies” (Dec. 5, 2002; emphasis mine). In that article, Dr. Jermyn lists three mythical causes for hunger: not enough food, too many people, and bad weather. Peter Rosset, executive director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, co-authored a book in 1998 titled World Hunger: Twelve Myths. “The true source of world hunger is not scarcity but policy; not inevitability but politics,” said Rosset. “The real culprits are economies that fail to offer everyone opportunities, and societies that place economic efficiency over compassion.” An Institute for Food and Development Policy Backgrounder, based on the book, stated, “Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world’s food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day. That doesn’t even count many other commonly eaten foods—vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: 2½ pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk and eggs—enough to make most people fat! The problem is that many people are too poor to buy readily available food. Even most ‘hungry countries’ have enough food for all their people right now. Many are net exporters of food and other agricultural products” (Summer 1998). To prove the point, India, which has been identified as home to almost half of the world’s hungry, is Asia’s second-greatest producer of wheat after China, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). “This year’s Indian wheat output [2003], while revised downward, still shows a sharp increase over last year and the 2004 wheat area and output are estimated to be above last year and above the five-year average” (Environment News Service, June 1, 2004). India exports about 2 million metric tons of wheat per year. The Politics of Food “As the FAO states, ‘There is no lack of knowledge about how to fight hunger’ .… Economic policies, trade rules and corporate market power that sharply deepen the inequality between rich and poor are at the root of hunger” (“Challenging the Rules: Global Hunger and the Politics of Food,” oxfam.ca). Economic policies are one of the main causes of world hunger. Look at the wealthy and powerful of any nation whose people are starving. Are the elite starving? No—in fact, they are often grossly overweight. Why? Because only the poor and disenfranchised of a nation starve. That is the direct result of denying a nation’s inhabitants the opportunity to own land for producing their food, or to seek gainful employment so they can purchase the food they need. On occasion, even homeless people in America starve to death. That isn’t because America doesn’t have enough food; it has a superabundance. It’s because, for one reason or another, some American citizens live on the streets of the richest nation on Earth and exist on handouts from others. Increasing international food production, called the “Green Revolution,” was supposed to solve the problem of world hunger. It has failed because of the politics of food. “[T]he ‘Green Revolution’ sponsored by international support organs increased grain production significantly. Still, the book [World Hunger: Twelve Myths] notes that ‘in several of the biggest Green Revolution successes—India, Mexico and the Philippines for example —grain production and in some cases exports, have climbed while hunger has persisted’” (psrast.org). Poverty is a main cause of hunger: Only those who have funds can afford to buy food; only those who own land can grow food. “As the rural poor are increasingly pushed from land, they are less and less able to demand for food on the market” (ibid.). International Trade Policies Reducing world hunger by international trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Area of the Americas, was based on the belief that greater trade in food would result in greater food security. The opposite is true. Feeding the world’s hungry by promoting free trade has proven to be a colossal failure. As Oxfam Canada points out, exporting produce has caused greater insecurity because food has become a profitable commodity. Simply put, it’s more profitable for a nation to sell at premium export prices than to sell at base price to the peasantry. In addition, the small farmer does not participate in these major trade agreements, so his interests and livelihood are not supported by them. “For example, in 1999 wealthy OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries spent $360 billion on agricultural subsidies, while total revenues for all developing nations from agricultural exports was only $170 billion. In other words, rich countries spent more than double the amount in subsidies that developing countries actually earned! Heavily subsidized agribusinesses produce more than is needed domestically. This cheap oversupply is then ‘dumped’ onto the markets of poor countries at prices less than the actual costs of production” (oxfam.ca, op. cit.). “Dumping” undermines local economies because it artificially forces the market price down, and local farmers cannot compete. Therefore, because the developing nations lack international protections against these trade rules, economic policies, and the sheer power of major developed nations, they and their people fall victim to this practice. The truth is, even in the category of trade, the world is divided into those who have and those who have not. Wars and Rumors of Wars The greatest fundamental cause of world hunger, far outstripping weather or any other single cause, is internal political and social unrest and conflict. Of the major nations suffering famine, Haiti, Sudan, Afghanistan, Colombia and the Congo have been hit as the direct result of civil war and conflict that has driven populations from their homes and farms. In Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe urged that producing white farmers be forcibly evicted from their farms, promoting massive crop loss in the country. Civil war has been the single greatest contributor to world poverty and the death of its civilians. Sub-Saharan Africa is a prime example of this fact. In Sudan alone, it is estimated that 2 million inhabitants have been affected. The war in Afghanistan has dragged on for 22 years; civil war in Colombia has continued for 40 years. In the Congo at least 3.4 million people have been internally displaced by civil conflict. In North Korea, the extreme shortage of food has been made worse by the government choosing to spend its money on feeding the army and military issues rather than obtaining food to feed its people
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:22:19 +0000
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