GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION MEETING NOVEMBER 2000. The End of Hunger in the 21st Century: Myth or Reality? Dr. Liz Young Staffordshire University

GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION MEETING NOVEMBER 2000


The End of Hunger in the 21st Century:

Myth or Reality?

Dr. Liz YoungStaffordshire University


Overview

• Contemporary geography of world hunger

• Estimates for the 21st century• Ways Forward: strategies and

debates• Issues for the 21st century


“Almost 800 million people in the developing world do not have enough to eat. Another 34 million people in the industrialised countries and countries in transition also suffer from chronic food insecurity”

(FAO, 2000)

“ Both developed and developing nations are paying a high price for malnutrition. The World Bank estimates that hunger cost India between 3% and 9% of its GDP in 1996. And obesity cost the United States 12% of its national health care budget in the late 1990’s, $118 billion, more than double the $47 billion attributed to smoking”

(Halweil, 2000)


Contemporary Hunger

Chronic Hunger: contemporary patterns• 791 million people in developing world• 34 million in ‘transitional economies’

• Total 825 million

• New statistic measures ‘depth’ of hunger and reflects very different character of hunger within these broad categories( range from 150-450 kilo-calorie deficits per day)


Contemporary Hunger continued

• New maps now available which measure degree of food deprivation where: 1 is low prevalence and low depth and 5 is high prevalence and high depth

• 23 countries in SSA and Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Haiti, Mongolia and North Korea all receive 5 in the latest FAO report http://www.fao.org/FOCUS/E/SOF100/sofi008-e.htm


Table 1 Geography of Contemporary

Hunger Sub-Saharan Africa N East/N Africa Latin America/Caribbean China India TOTAL

**Transitional economies TOTAL

180

33

53

164

204

791

34

825

**Transitional economies of former Soviet Union (now the Commonwealth of Independent States). Russia and the Asian and Caucasian Republics have seen the re-emergence of malnutrition as public social provisioning has collapsed in post-1991 circumstances.


Source: Food and Agricultural Organisation (2000) The State of Food Insecurity http://www.fao.org/NEWS/FACTFILE/FF9702-E.HTM

Sub-Saharan Africa N East/N Africa Latin America/Caribbean China/India Other Asia AVERAGE

34

10

11

16

19

18

Table 2 Geography of Contemporary

Hunger% of total population


Summary

• China and India still greatest numbers but experiencing declines

• SSA greatest incidence and greatest ‘depth’ of hunger (recent statistic used to reflect extent of calorie deficit)

• 1970: 920 million• 2000: 792 million• Progress uneven


Estimates for the 21st century

• Estimated 580 million by 2015

• 400 million was target for 2015 of World Food Summit, 1996

• Progress, but not enough


Estimates for the 21st century continued

Success Stories• Ghana and Nigeria

1979 - 1996: 30% decline in malnutrition


• Thailand• State intervention to target vulnerable

groups 1988: 32.6% in poverty 1996: 11.4%




• Caution! Predictions are notoriously difficult and

human history is full of unexpected surprises. (emergence of malnutrition in former Soviet Union and famines in 1930s, 1950s)


Ways Forward: food security in the 21st century

• ‘Past experience suggests that chronic hunger could be conquered within this century’ (FAO, 16th October 2000 World Food Day ‘a millennium free from hunger’)


• The conventional way:• Globalisation, free markets and corporate

control ‘Britain will this year export 111 million

litres of milk and 47 million kilograms of butter, while simultaneously importing 173 million litres of milk and 49 million kilograms of butter’ (Norberg-Hodge, 1999 p209)


continued


• Decline of local provisioning


continued


• Technologically based: ‘agricultural industrialisation’• Mechanisation• Chemical farming• Food manufacturing

• Diffusion of technologically agricultural production• Green Revolution of 1970’s• Genetically modified crops


continued


• Intensive production systems• High energy inputs• Increases in irrigated land• ‘Landless’ production

systems


continued


• Export orientated systems ‘Developing countries will become increasingly

dependent on imports of cereals. Their net cereal imports are expected to rise from 107 million tonnes in 1995/97 to 270 million tonnes in2030’ (see review at:http://www.fao.org/NEWS/2000/000704-e.htm)

Ways Forward: food security in 21st century continued


The case against more of the same:

• Unsustainable nature of current system• http://www.irn.org/programs/threeg/

• Vulnerability to collapse• http://www.grain.org/publications/set00/set003.htm

• Environmental impacts• http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith 2000/lecture5.stm • http://www.worldwatch.org/chairman/issue/000502.html• http://www.cgiar.org/ifpri/pressre/052500.htm

• Mounting evidence of social impacts• http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/000901.html• http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith 2000/lecture5.stm


• ‘Meanwhile, mono-culture farming based on industrial techniques, vast transport systems and elaborate commercial and financial instruments, are being rapidly exported to the rest of the world. The complexity and self-renewal of those systems are in danger, as is biological diversity and the renewal of water and air cycles necessary to human life’ (Friedman, 2000 p150)


Conclusion: Revisiting food security

• ‘food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels . . is achieved when all people, at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life’

(World Food Summit, 1996)


Conclusion: Revisiting food security continued

• ‘Sufficient’ remains an important objective• ‘Safe’ food globally

• http://notmilk.com/

• ‘nutritious’ food globally (the face of malnutrition in the 21st c?)• http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/000304.htm

• ‘choice’ for consumers• http://www.oneworld.org/ni/issue325/bite.htm


• sustainability in both regions• http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/news/latest/

brief15500.htm• http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Articke/

0,4273,4012574,00.html• http://www.faoorg/NEWS/FACTFILE/FF9810-E.HTM

(urban populations)

Conclusion: Revisiting food security continued


Conclusion continued

• Halting the decline of the planet’s life-support systems may be the most difficult challenge humanity has ever faced’ (Lash quoted in IFPRI, 2000 p1)


THE END

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GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION MEETING NOVEMBER 2000. The End of Hunger in the 21st Century: Myth or Reality? Dr. Liz Young Staffordshire University