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WORLD HUNGER FACTS More than 840 million people in the world are malnourished—799
million of them are from the developing world. More than 153 million of them are under the age of 5.
6 million children under the age of 5 die every year as a result of hunger.
Of the 7 billion people in today's world, 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day.
The proportion of people living on less than $1 a day has fallen from 29 percent to 23 percent in the past 10 years, although that masks significant regional differences.
– East Asia has seen a drop from 28 percent to 14 percent. – South Asia has seen a drop from 44 percent to 37 percent. – Africa has seen a drop from 48 percent to only 47 percent.
World Hunger Facts
The amount of money that the richest 1 percent of the world's population make each year equals what the poorest 57 percent make.
The richest 5 percent of the world's population have incomes 114 times that of the poorest 5 percent.
Malnutrition can severely affect a child's intellectual development. Children who have stunted growth due to malnutrition score significantly lower on math and language achievement tests than do well-nourished children.
Virtually every country in the world has the potential of growing sufficient food on a sustainable basis. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has set the minimum requirement for caloric intake per person per day at 2,350. Worldwide, there are 2,805 calories available per person per day. Fifty-four countries fall below that requirement; they do not produce enough food to feed their populations, nor can they afford to import the necessary commodities to make up the gap. Most of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
World Hunger
Vocabulary Why Food: The Basics Agricultural Development Food Production: Factors Reasons for Food Crisis
World Hunger: Terms
A temporary failure of food production or distribution systems in a particular region that leads to increased mortality due to starvation and diseases that result from lack of food. Natural Causes: drought, crop disease Human Causes: civil war
Example: 1984 Famine in Ethiopia
“Up to five children die every day”
Read more about the Ethiopian Famine
Is it going to happen again?
FAMINE
World Hunger: Terms
An extreme form of hunger in which people suffer from a total lack of energy and essential minerals. The body wastes away as tissue is consumed to provide protein and energy.
Starvation
Malnutrition
• a condition which damage to health is caused by a diet that includes either too much or too little of one or more essential nutrients over an extended period.
- This could include obesity and high blood pressure as these are caused by excesses in diet
- International development usually focuses on lack of nutrients or poor food quality. This type of malnutrition is called undernutrition.
The Importance of Food Provides materials and nutrients for cell growth. It provides us
with the energy we need for growth, physical activity and the basic body functions (breathing, thinking, temperature control, blood circulation and digestion, metabolism). Food also supplies us with the materials to build and maintain the body and to promote resistance to disease.
Food gives the body energy – Kilojoules (KJ) or Calories (Note: if all of the Calories that we eat are not burned up for energy use the body stores these calories as Fat).
An average person needs about 2200 kcal per day. A Canadian gets on average 2900 KJ per day. What pattern do you see on the following map?
Food: Nutrients These different functions are made possible by the nutrients contained
in food. The types of nutrients in food are carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and water. All foods contain one or more of these nutrients in varying amounts. Each type of nutrient serves particular functions. This is why diversity in our diets is important for good health. We need all of the nutrients, provided by a variety of foods, for all of our body processes.
Although one may eat enough kilo-calories of food, one can still suffer from malnutrition, if there is a lack of essential nutrients.
This can result in a variety of diseases. One of the most common being PEM (protein-energy malnutrition)
Food: NutrientsCARBOHYDRATES
Chemical group including – sugar, starch, carbon and oxygen.
Wheat, rice, corn, potatoes
Easy to produce. Grains are the most important in the world.
Food: NutrientsFATS
Tissue of animals
37.8 KJ of energy for every 1 gram of fat.
Most concentrated form of food energy.
Butter, lard, liver, eggs, vegetable oil, fruit.
Food: NutrientsPROTEIN
Amino acids
Protein is needed to grow and repair tissue.
Meat, milk, egg, fish, cereals and Soya beans.
Protein is the most expensive and scarce of the three.
Agricultural Development
Some Technological advances:– First Agricultural Revolution – creation of farming– Second Agricultural Revolution – energy, tractors, diffusion of crop types– the development of the plough (plow) over time (spatial diffusion lead to
widespread increase in cultivation – some places just starting to use it). (started BCE into 900 CE)
– More effective use of land – intensive vs. extensive cropping systems.– The introduction of steam powered tractors, diffusion of crop types,
fertilizers, specialization (1600-1870s)– Green Revolution – development of High Yield Varieties (wheat) (1945 –
1970) This will be discussed in the future.– Second Green Revolution? – biotechnology, GMOs, agribusiness,
corporations, globalization. (1990- present date)
Agricultural Development
The expansion of agriculture into different parts of the world. Ie. the North American Grasslands opened for farming between 1840 and 1915. This lead to an increase in world food production. Currently, all arable land is being used, no more land is being planted for the first time. What does this lead to?
Food Production The Factors Required
Food is the basic resource of the world’s population. The production of food depends on the following factors:
Environmental – climate, soils Technological – irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides
(insects), herbicides (weeds) and storage of food Economical/Political – pricing, trade, export/import,
tariffs, subsidies, distribution, taxes etc. The key factor, of course, is environmental.
Food Production The Factors Required: Environmental
Climate
Solar energy or heat requirement. This is measured by the length of the ‘Growing Season’ (the number
consecutive days where no frost occurs and the temperature is over 5.50 C.) or the number of ‘Degree Days’ (summing the number of degrees each day’s average temperature is over 5.50 C.)
Moisture requirement. This is measured in the amount of Precipitation.
Evapotranspiration. This is the movement of water from the soil into the atmosphere by evaporation from the soil and transpiration from plants.
Food Production The Factors Required: Environmental
Soil Fertility
Soil is a complex substance that includes minerals, living and decaying organic materials, water and air.
The amount of decaying organic material (Humus) is most important – determines the soil’s fertility.
Technologies such as irrigation and fertilizers add to the health of a soil.
Poor agricultural practices such as excessive cultivation of the land leads to unproductive soil.
Food Production The Factors Required: Environmental
Topography
Flat land is best for uniform crop growth.
Biological Organisms
Organisms are highly beneficial for farming. Earthworms are needed for soil aeration and bees for pollination. Unfortunately other organisms like insects can be destructive as well as plants like weeds (examples?)
Food Production The Factors Required: Environmental
Few places in the world are ‘perfect’ for farming long enough growing season
Amount of moisture
rich soils, level land, and just the right mix of biological conditions.
Most of the time there is some ‘deficiency in one or more of the above factors and farmers must work at overcoming them.
The chart in the next slide illustrates some of the deficiencies and the adjustments that farmers need to make.
Food Crisis
Population size and growth
Some countries are having trouble matching food production to their population growth (reasons for this are given in the next few slides). Malthus of course predicted this, although the massive starvation and death did not happen on a global scale due to the following reasons:
a) New areas of agriculture were opened up – prairies in N.A., Australia and South Africa – mainly due to irrigation.
b) Science and technology - Green revolution and GMO’s (Genetically Modified Organisms). Some crops grew faster, yielded more and were disease resistant.
c) Better transportation and storage. Reduced waste and allowed movement from deficit areas to surplus areas, especially for emergency food aid.
Reasons For Food Crisis
1. Low level of agricultural technology
Agricultural activities can be classified in TWO ways.The first (A) can classify farming as either Subsistence or Cash-Cropping:
A1. Subsistence Farming – Farmers that grow crops and raise livestock for their own use. Grow enough to keep them and their families alive.
A2. Cash-Crop Farming – Farmers that grow a surplus and sell on the open or world market. Farm for a living.
Reasons For Food Crisis
1. Low level of agricultural technology
The second way (B) classifies farming as either Intensive or Extensive farming:
B1. Intensive Farming: involves farming on small amounts of land. The farming is concentrated and labour intensive as well as technology. Growing fruits and vegetables, vineyards, and livestock in Canada in an example.
B2. Extensive Farming: involves large amounts of land with limited amounts of labour. Machines do most of the work. Grain farming in Western Canada is a good example. Ranching is also considered extensive farming
Reasons For Food Crisis 1. Low level of agricultural technology
Some countries in the developing world are still using traditional farming methods. Some (Northern Africa) even use the old Hunting and Gathering technique. This method is primitive, time consuming, unreliable, there is no storage involved and it is greatly susceptible to climate.
Some countries use a method called Shifting Cultivation or Slash and Burn. In this method an area will be farmed for a year, then after Harvest the crop will be burned to add nutrients and farmed again the next year. After a few years the soil’s fertility will be weak, so the farmer moves into a new area. Burning is again used to clear the new area. An example would be in the Rainforest in South America.
Reasons For Food Crisis
1. Low level of agricultural technology
The developed world uses methods that produce a very high yield for the area farmed. The methods have been called; Settled agriculture, Permanent agriculture, Commercial agriculture, Agribusiness and Mixed Farming.
All of these involve a market economy where the price is dependent on supply and demand. The farming is usually specialized in a few crops, if not one. Fertilizer, irrigation and herbicides are used extensively. The farming is heavy mechanized (tractors etc.). It is not family oriented, it is run like a business. These farms are large in size and are very productive.
Agriculture - Alberta
Reasons For Food Crisis 1. Low level of agricultural technology
Agribusiness is a unique term and relates to ‘Vertical Integration’, which means that a company like Kraft Foods will own all aspects of making a product like cheese. They will own the dairy farm, the farm that grows the food for the cows, along with the processing and packaging plants.
1.5 billion hectares or 11% of the earth’s total surface is devoted to crops.
3.4 billion hectares or 26% to pasture land.
most ‘non-agricultural’ land is too hot, dry or cold. This land is sometimes called ‘Marginal land’.
Reasons For Food Crisis 1. Low level of agricultural technology
Aquaculture and Hydroponics are two other buzz words used by developed farmers. Aquaculture is the harvesting of fish in control environments. Fish are usually grown in large tanks. The worry of disease and predators is eliminated.
Hydroponics is the growing of crops without the use of soil. The medium used is water. Most of this type of farming is done in greenhouses and this removes the expense of land, weed control and pests. Fertilizer costs are also kept at a minimum and of course water shortage is not an issue.
Reasons For Food Crisis
2. Pests and Fertilizer use• Pests (especially rats) eat 10-25% of the world’s entire
food grain output. Some say “solve the pest problem and you will have solved the food problem”.
• Fertilizer use can lead to something called ‘diminishing returns’. You have to add just the right amount of fertilizer for optimal yields. If you add more the yield diminishes.
