On World Food Day, Colm Regan explores 10 myths about the causes of world hunger. Among others, he finds that there does not seem to be a global shortage of food and that women’s rights play an important role.

There simply isn’t enough food in the world to feed its growing population

While world hunger has many linked causes, a global shortage of food is not one of them. According to most reliable sources, including the UN’s World Food Programme, the world already produces enough food to feed up to 10 billion people (the expected world population in 2050). Yet in 2017, some 821 million people (about one in every nine) were undernourished due largely to poverty, inequality, climate change and conflict.

Food production continues to increase faster than population growth but the world’s poor and vulnerable simply do not have access to sufficient resources to secure an adequate basic diet. The number of those hungry has risen each year since 2014 while we continue to waste an estimated 30 per cent+ of the food we produce.

The world’s hungry remain hungry because they are not politically important enough; because they are poor and because the world’s priorities in terms of food production, distribution and security are focused elsewhere.

Nature and natural disasters are to blame for hunger

While many people live in areas that are vulnerable to events in nature, food is always available for those who can afford it; hunger in hard times or in times of disaster hits only the poorest. Millions of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable continue to live on the edge with little surplus (if any) to sustain them even in normal times let alone in times of environmental stress. Extreme weather events also affect many so-called developed countries with entirely different results.

Inequality, poverty, conflict and the economic and political behaviour of the powerful place larger numbers at environmental risk every year. Blaming nature for this simply avoids the real issues.

World hunger is getting worse

While there are many arguments about how hunger is measured (and that hunger is often under-reported), there is little disagreement that considerable progress has been made in recent decades. The percentage of the population experiencing undernourishment has declined in all regions of the world since 1991. There are now some 220 million fewer hungry people than in 1990-92, despite a 1.9 billion increase in the world’s population. 

Despite this, the number of the world’s hungry has begun to rise again since 2014 (up to 821 million in 2017 from 783 million in 2005). Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage of population levels of hunger (at 29.8 per cent in 2017) while Asia has the highest numbers of the world’s hungry (at 515 million in 2017).

However, we now know far more about the issue of hunger, its causes and about those at risk and about how best to intervene, so we are now better equipped than ever before to tackle the issue, if we seriously choose to do so.

Ending world hunger simply means ensuring people have enough to eat

Not true – hunger is not simply about having enough food, it also involves having the right balance in the type of food we eat. This is often referred to as ‘hidden hunger’. Having the right combination of nutrients and calories needed for healthy development is vital especially so for infants, pregnant women and young children.

It’s difficult to know in advance where hunger will strike or who it will affect most.

While this may be true in respect of extreme weather events, it is not true of the ongoing, daily hunger the bulk of the world’s undernourished experience. We now know who those at risk of hunger are – small landholders, agricultural labourers, many indigenous peoples (especially farmers) and the urban poor. We also know a lot about when they are likely to be hungry (in the ‘hungry months before a harvest or when they have to sell off their basic tools, seeds or livestock or when food prices rise on world markets etc.). Our famine early warning systems are now much improved.

This information (which is rapidly improving all the time) allows us to plan ahead, be prepared with effective strategies and to focus on those most at risk.

You cannot refuse to be silent on the issue. Raise your voice

World hunger is about food issues, not women’s rights

If we wish to get serious about world hunger, we must get serious about the rights of women – for one very simple reason. Globally, women continue to bear the greatest responsibility for food production, especially in those areas and among those groups most at risk. Women farmers and labourers produce more than half of all food worldwide and the figure rises to 85 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa.

This work is undertaken alongside other domestic tasks including processing food crops, collecting water and firewood, and preparing and cooking food. Focusing directly on women farmers and labourers as well as on women heads-of-households is a must in terms of tackling world hunger.

Large-scale intensive farming on large farms – agribusiness ­is the answer

While large-scale agriculture remains an important sector in world food production, it is by no means the most important when dealing with world hunger. Its priorities lie elsewhere in the agendas and programmes of some of the world’s largest transnational corporations. The majority of those organisations worldwide concerned directly with hunger have called for a much greater focus on the problems and the potential of small-scale farmers.

The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, has called for all governments to shift their subsidies and their research funding from large agribusiness to small-scale rural farmers, those who are already feeding the majority of the world.

The world’s hungry are waiting for us to solve the problem

Those who experience hunger on an ongoing basis remain the most qualified to tackle the issue when given the resources and support to do so. Or, in many cases, when the obstacles to them doing so are removed or mitigated. Our job is to support them in their struggle at a local and regional level rather than to organise high-profile international interventions. Preventing hunger rather than simply tackling it when it occurs is the most important strategy.

We certainly have a role to play, especially in raising awareness, challenging inequality and poverty, waste and damaging ‘market’ behaviour as well as in times of humanitarian disaster caused by climate change or conflict etc.

Africa has most of the world’s hungry

In 2017, Africa (especially Sub-Saharan Africa) had the highest percentage of its population who remain hungry (29.8 per cent) but the largest absolute numbers of the world’s hungry were in Asia, especially southern Asia (515 million).

The ‘depth of food deficit’ offers an estimate of the number of calories the average individual would need in order to balance their intake of calories against their intake with energy requirements. In 2015, the majority of developing countries had a ‘food deficit’ below 200 kilocalories per person per day. A small number of countries had a deficit ranging from 300-500, most in Sub-Saharan Africa and the country with the highest deficit was Haiti, at 530 kilocalories per person per day.

There is very little the average person can do about world hunger

Our immediate response when confronted with the challenge of world hunger is to either look away or to support an organisation directly addressing the issue. Refusing to look away and beginning to learn more about the issue and its relationship to our lives is a key first step.

Supporting those organisations focused directly on the needs of those most at risk is another vital step. Building the movement against world hunger and insisting that the issue moves up the list of priority world issues is a necessary part of insisting governments and companies act effectively in the interests of the world’s hungry.

But that is only a beginning. There is so much more we can do − from raising the issue among friends, in school or college, at work, in our clubs and community groups etc., to challenging the scandals of food waste, biofuels, speculation in food commodities, land grabbing etc.

Most importantly, you cannot refuse to be silent on the issue. Raise your voice! Stand in support of the world’s hungry and insist on immediate and effective action.

Colm Regan writes on issues such as world hunger for www.developmenteducation.ie (where more on world hunger can be found).