World
Food Day and the Irony of World Hunger
On
the 24th year of World Food Day, 14 percent of humanity suffers
from extreme hunger – in a world where, so food experts say, there is
more than enough food for everyone. A UN study states that the reduction
of hunger involves “the fostering of pro-poor economic growth,” among
other things.
BY
ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Many
of Manila's homeless find home on the pavement of T.M. Kalaw Street in
Manila. Photos
by Dabet Castañeda
Oct.
16 is World Food Day. It is marked by the United Nations (UN)’s Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) as such in commemoration of its founding on
the said date in 1945 in Quebec, Canada.
FAO
member-countries established World Food Day during its 20th
General Conference in 1979, and chose the organization’s founding date.
On
the 24th World Food Day, the FAO is confronting a world where
840 million people – 14 percent of the world population – suffer from
hunger. Based on data from the Germany-based Bread for the World
Institute, 75 percent of the world’s hungry people live in rural areas
– where the food baskets are located.
A
2002 study by the FAO itself, World
Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030,
shows that as of 1997-99, there were already 815 million people suffering
from extreme hunger – 777 million of them residing in the Third World,
11 million in the First World, and 27 million in what is described as
“transition countries,” composed mainly of the former Soviet states.
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In
the Philippines, hunger reveals its face in the social survey of the
Social Weather Station (SWS) for the third quarter of 2004. The survey
shows that 15.1 percent of household heads reported that their families
“had experienced hunger, without having anything to eat, at least once
in the last (three) months.”
A
recent study by Jose Ramon Albert and Paula Monina Collado of the
government Statistical Research and Training Center also noted that seven
out of every 10 poor Filipinos reside in the countryside. Data from the
socio-economic think tank IBON Foundation place the number of poor
Filipinos at 88 percent of the 81-million population.
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For
most of the world’s hungry people to be starving where food is produced
is already an irony that would be ridiculous if it were not miserable and
depressing. The irony gets all the more bitter when one considers the fact
that there is, even at present, enough food to feed everyone in the world.
Food
production vs population growth
The
FAO study further reveals that world food production has been outstripping
population growth based on available data from 1979. From 1979 to 1999,
FAO says, there was a population growth of 1.6 percent per year compared
to a 2.1 percent growth in agricultural production.
In
his book, Distorted Priorities: The
Politics of Food, the late nationalist historian and analyst Renato
Constantino cited a 1981 analysis by food experts saying that even at that
time’s level of science and technology, the world can support a
population of 40 billion.
The
FAO study projects a population growth of 1.2 percent a year from 1997 to
2015 compared to a 1.6 percent growth in agricultural production for the
same period. Furthermore, it predicts a population growth of 0.9 percent
from 2015 to 2030 and a growth in agricultural production of 1.3 percent
for the same period.
In
other words, from 1979 to 1999 there was in fact already more than enough
food to feed the world’s population.
While
world food production is seen to decrease from 1997 to 2030, world
population growth is seen to lessen even faster. At least until 2030, the
world can expect that there will still be more than enough food for
everyone.
Yet
in a world where there is enough food for everyone, 14 percent of the
population suffers from extreme hunger. Why?
Poverty
The
FAO study itself traces hunger to poverty. “Undernourishment is a
central manifestation of poverty,” the study states. “It also deepens
other aspects of poverty, by reducing the capacity for work and resistance
to disease, and by affecting children's mental development and educational
achievements.”
But
whence comes the poverty? The study recognizes inequality as a major
factor of poverty, and recommends its reduction as a means toward poverty
reduction.
“Growth
in incomes is essential if under-nourishment is to be reduced,” the
study states, “but it is not enough by itself. Better public services
– such as improved female and nutrition education, safe drinking water
and improved health services and sanitation – are also needed.
Interventions in these areas must be carefully targeted toward the most
vulnerable groups.”
“The
development community today shares the same broad recipe for poverty
reduction,” the FAO study further points out. “The recipe involves
fostering pro-poor economic growth and (favoring) poor people's access to
all the services and other factors that support poverty eradication and
define an acceptable standard of living: markets, credit and
income-producing assets, basic education, health and sanitation services,
safe water, transport and communications infrastructure, and so on.
Providing access to these basic human rights is seen as an end in itself,
but it will also boost economic growth.” Bulatlat
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