It is said that the greatest thing to happen to a hungry man is bread. Every now and then, pictures of hungry children, famine-ridden areas and nations hit by ‘hunger wars’ come into your home by means of TV, magazines and newspapers. But it is more than just headlines, it is a hungry childhood, it is men fighting for food. It is a sad situation where 11.5 million people in the Horn of Africa are in dire need of humanitarian aid, but what’s worse is, it’s not just Africa. The entire world is affected by hunger in one way or the other. According to the latest State of Food Insecurity (SOFI) report 12.5 per cent of the world’s population is chronically undernourished, a population that exceeds 7 billion. Even regions like the US and Europe, that are considered reasonably prosperous, have 20 per cent of families struggling to put food on the table. Simply put, more people live with hunger than without.

But no number can express how ‘energy poverty’ destroys human potential. Food is not just fuel for the human body but also the sustenance that binds together families, societies and nations. It is one of the pillars the world is built on.

What part of the world actually lives hungry? According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), most of the undernourished people live in developing countries. Asia and the Pacific regions have the most number of undernourished people. But in terms of percentage, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest concentration of hunger, with more than one in three people being chronically undernourished.

According to UN reports, the world population will hit the 9 billion mark by 2050. The challenges of global hunger and poverty are growing at a time when worries about the sustainability of natural resources are also on the rise. Growing population and increased affluence in certain parts of the globe will require food production to sky-rocket by 2050 to keep pace.

Environmental concerns are also a roadblock. The extra food production will have to come from roughly the same amount of land and resources available today.

Despite these numbers, there is reason to be hopeful that the goal of feeding the world population can be achieved. Agricultural productivity between 1970 and 2010 has increased threefold. Gains in agricultural productivity helped bring about the Green Revolution and rescued about a billion people from famine in the 20th century. The only glitch now in agricultural produce and technology is the challenge of making it safe, abundant, affordable and accessible to the world as we reach the mid-century mark. Trade barriers, that raise prices and undercut many farmers in developing nations, must be knocked off. Policies, that distort agricultural trade and decision making on a global scale, must be reframed because these hinder potentially productive farmers in many nations from accessing free markets. Challenges like hunger, food security and sustainability can be opportunities to other fairly prosperous nations to jointly eradicate these problems. Nations like the US, that are leaders in agricultural technology, can make focused efforts with other nations to increase farm yields, create economic opportunities for the rural masses and also broaden agricultural know-how across the globe.

Hunger drives communities to violence before death. Poverty is not the only cause of hunger and food insecurity. Natural disasters, wars and other conflicts, poor agricultural infrastructure, environmental concerns and various socio-economic problems also play a big role. FAO lists four factors for any nation to achieve food security:

There must be enough food to ensure every individual’s daily nutritional needs.

Even with adequate food supplies, people must have complete access to that food.

Food supply must be stable. Destabilising factors can be floods, droughts, price hikes, etc.

Food must be culturally and religiously acceptable.

Every community has the instinct to focus on problems closer to home. But individuals can and need to be agents of change because hunger is a global phenomenon and it can get to each one of us at some point of time. The answer lies in people, communities and nations coming together, treating food security as a priority, and making safe, affordable food a reality for those who struggle with hunger on a daily basis. In the words of Jimmy Carter, “We know that a peaceful world cannot long exist, one-third rich and two-thirds hungry.”

(Suraj Kannan is studying at ACJ, Chennai.)

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