World Hunger - how big a problem is it?
Questions
· How many people in the world live in hunger?
· Do humans produce enough food to feed everyone?
· What political and environmental factors lead to mass starvation?
· What are some of the health risks that starvation causes?
Background
· In 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include the promise to end world hunger by 2030 [3] [7]
o People living below the UN-specified poverty line (<$1.90 earned per day) spend between 50% and 70% of their income on food [3]
· According to a study conducted by McGill University and the University of Minnesota, the world produces enough food produced to feed 10 billion people, and the rate of global increase in food production is greater than the rate of increase in the world’s population [4]
· According to the “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017”, published jointly by the United Nations and other world organizations - https://www.unicef.org/publications/index_100818.html - global hunger, after steadily declining for over a decade, is on the rise again, affecting 815 million people in 2016, or 11 per cent of the global population. What is particularly troubling is that of this number, 489 million live in countries affected by conflict such as northeast Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
Facts & Data
· The United Nations defines famine as when over 30% of children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition, and mortality rates are greater than 2 people for every 10,000 people per day [6]
o Four countries (Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen) are currently suffering from mass famine [5]
o However, the issue of hunger is prevalent in many other countries (according to the UN, as much as 20% of the world’s population faces extreme food shortages) [6]
· 45% of deaths among children under the age of 5 are caused by malnutrition [7] [8]
· The World Bank estimates that 80% of people living below the poverty line of below $1.90/day live in rural areas
o Since starvation usually results from poverty, the World Economic Forum proposes that higher rural incomes would greatly decrease starvation rates [3]
· Starvation weakens the immune system, making hungry people prone to diseases such as:
o Cholera (which causes dehydration if left untreated) [6]
o Malaria (which is common in many of the same African countries that already suffer from hunger crises) [6]
o Measles (which is especially deadly to children) [6]
o Swollen legs and feet (mostly results from the most severe form of hunger, known as “severe acute malnutrition”) [1]
Examples
Yemen Hunger Crisis
· According to the United Nations Secretary-General, more than 75% of the Yemeni population are starving (22 out of 28 million people) [1]
· 8.4 million people in Yemen rely on food aid to survive [1]
· Over 50,000 children in Yemen in 2018 so far have died of hunger [1]
· This mass starvation is a result of high food prices, civil war, and the Saudi bombing of ports (this Saudi-led bombing coalition is backed by the United States) [2]
o The bombing of these port cities aims to kill Houthi rebels [2]
o This stops ships from entering the ports, making food importation impossible and starving out the majority of Yemen’s population [2]
o A shortage of medicine prevents the Yemeni people from being able to fight diseases resulting from extreme hunger [1]
· Stephen Anderson, the Yemen director of the World Food Programme, stated that “Yemen is considered to be the world’s largest humanitarian emergency.” [1]
Increased starvation in Yemen is a side-effect of Saudi-led bombing campaigns against port cities captured by the Houthis.
Although becoming underweight is the most visible sign of malnutrition, symptoms of extreme hunger extend to swollen legs and various diseases.
Closer to home – the Haiti Hunger Crisis
· The current malnutrition rate in Haiti is 22.9% [9]
· The extreme hunger in Haiti is largely due to poverty
o 75% of Haitians live off less than 2 U.S. dollars a day, making Haiti the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere [11]
· Starvation can also be attributed to the harsh weather conditions in Haiti, which include El Niño droughts, earthquakes, and hurricanes [9]
o Lead to an increase in food prices and economic inflation [9]
· In 2016, the United Nations World Food Program stated that Haiti is facing “its worst food crisis in 15 years” [9]
o 70% of crops were destroyed from weather conditions resulting from El Niño [9]
o Haiti was politically unstable when this crisis began, as President Michel Martelly left office, and no successor or provisional government was able to replace him [9]
o In response to these recent events, the United Nations World Food Program donated $84 million to fight the country’s hunger crisis, but starvation persists [9]
At home in the United States:
· The US as a developed economy is fortunate that there are no segments of the population suffering from starvation. The US Department of Agriculture uses the term, “Food Insecure” to refer to households that at times did not have the resources to obtain the food needed to feed the family. There are estimated to be about 40 million who are ‘food insecure’, and of them a little over 10 million had ‘very low food security’ - https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx
Bibliography
2) https://www.rt.com/news/441153-yemen-food-saudi-coalition/
4) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/world-hunger_b_1463429.html
5) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/famine-united-nations-170310234132946.html
6) https://www.who.int/emergencies/humanitarian-emergencies/famine/en/
7) http://www1.wfp.org/zero-hunger
8) http://www.foodaidfoundation.org/world-hunger-statistics.html
9) https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article59399683.html
10) https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust?parent=en%2F11652
11) https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview
