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Tackling Hunger Globally

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Tackling Hunger GloballyTackling Hunger GloballyHunger is one of the indicators of the magnitude of social injustices that exist in the world. Its existence can be traced back very many years back. The French Revolution inthe 18th Century was driven not only by demands for political freedom, but also by the lack of bread in Paris. Food has been the cause and effect of many riots occurring whenever government policies caused severe economic hardship and clashed with the basic human right to food. Tea was a non-edible food item that was used as a protest tool by a group of Boston citizens, to protest the British tax on tea imported to the colonies. The food crises around the world prompted the establishment of the World Food Programme. In addition, many other United Nations agencies have included hunger or food security in their work programmes. These include: The United Nations Children Education Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Health Organisation and the different United Nations missions to war torn countries. The term ‘hunger’ is loosely defined and the meaning is often adapted to serve the purposes of those who may be experiencing it. For many, especially in affluent countries, hunger is the gnawing pain in the stomach when a meal is missed. On the other extreme, hunger is the physical depletion of those suffering from chronic under-nutrition. Hunger is, however, multi-dimensional, encompassing the emotional and political aspects of the society. It includes the anguish of a farmer faced with the choice of selling the produce from his farm, to pay rent for the land or feeding his family with thefood. It involves the grief of watching in helplessness as loved ones die for breaking thepractices and policies set by a handful of elites. Restrictions and laws are put in place to ensure that the poor and hungry are forced to provide their labour in exchange for low wages or small portions of food. In order to maintain the status quo, regulations arein place to reduce the chances of self-sufficiency for the poor. Even the Indian government’s schemes of rice and wheat at extremely subsidized rates is a no-go—either that grain finds its way to the black market or the quality is too poor to be consumed by any human being. Population growth has been believed to be the cause of hunger in some parts of the world, as there is pressure on the world’s limited resources. Thomas Malthus, an English economist, argued that population growth would inevitably outstrip the food and water supply at some point, since productive land and safe drinking water are finite resources. Mass starvation and anarchy would, therefore, be a consequence of a high rate of population growth. This belief and the problem of addressing the needs of a growing population led to drastic measures to reduce the rate of population growth. Hunger is a cause and effect of poverty. It is responsible for the debilitation of people physically, physiologically and psychologically. The most abundant asset available to the poor is labour, which could be used to earn a living. However, hunger means that this labour is ineffective, entrapping the poor in hunger and poverty. For the abjectly poor, the daily struggle of finding food for the family pushes aside any consideration of long-term development. While modern technology and medical research have discovered many innovative waysof fighting many pests and diseases, famines has been a source of serious distress for many years. The pressure to feed the world’s population has resulted in the use of marginal, erosion-prone lands and deforestation. This makes the environment more prone to famine situations and the fertility of the land is undermined. Natural disasters are indiscriminate and affect the poor and rich alike. An option to the hunger in present day is to reconstruct agriculture to be more self-reliant and discourage specialization. Help from aid agencies has to be reduced by increasing self-reliance, for that is a long-term measure. The development of farm cooperatives should be encouraged to facilitate and support farming activities among farm workers and urban migrants wishing to return to their rural homes. Increasing the amount of arable land under cultivation can also enhance food security.Reduction or cancellation of debts owed by farmers would be an incentive for their increased contribution towards ensuring food security. The exploitation of farm workers and small farmers is mainly because of their inability to exact a fair price for their labour and the goods they produce in a monopoly-controlled market. No wonder the suicides have become a regular feature in the rural districts. Unless the work is taken up on a war footing across the world, we will be put to shame repeatedly by skeletal expressions of people in places like Somalia, Ethiopia, and closer home in Maharashtra,Andhra Pradesh


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