Every day, 250,000 people, including 10,000, children die from starvation or other hunger-related causes.
In the former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s speech at the first World Food Congress in 1974, he said: “In ten years’ time, no child will go to bed hungry.” In 1974, 900 million people in developing countries did not have food security. Now, nearly half a century later, 854 million people are still chronically undernourished. Although this represents a much smaller percentage of the world population today, hunger is once again on the rise in much of the world. Progress is too slow and we have repeatedly failed to live up to our promises to the poor.
The Problem
Every day, 250,000, including 10,000 children die from starvation or other hunger-related causes. According to the UN Development Program, $13 billion a year would be enough to feed the world. Goal 2 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” by 2030. The UN reported that six years since this commitment, the world remains off track in ending hunger in 2030.
A human rights approach —
The human right to food, freedom from hunger, health and an adequate standard of living are enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Nutrition security and health cannot be achieved with food insecurity. Addressing world hunger, then, should begin with the discussion and implementation of human rights.
The food and agriculture organization recognizes four main dimensions of food security:
The physical availability of food (contingent on production, stock, and trade, is there physically enough food to feed the population?)
The economic and physical access to food (related to household income, market prices of food. Can households afford food given its availability?)
Food utilization (can the available and accessible food fulfill nutritional needs? Can it ensure nutritional security?)
Stability of the other three dimensions over time (external factors, such as war and conflict, recessions, natural disasters, and the covid-19 pandemic pose challenges to the stability of food security.)
Malnutrition, brought on by food insecurity, disproportionately harms children and women of reproductive age. A child’s physical and intellectual growth and health can be severely stunted by malnutrition. The nutrition of women and girls in developing countries is often the first to be sacrificed when households are faced with food shortages.
In recent years, we’ve witnessed newer challenges to food security: climate change strains and disrupts food production; rural to urban migration threatens the food security of the urban poor in developing countries; natural and manmade emergencies such as war and conclift and the COVID-19 pandemic brings about disruptions and complications in food production, access, and safety.
Recognizing that food security and nutrition security is a human right codified under international law obliges states to domesticate international law into domestic policy. But addressing food security requires accountability from international actors, states, civil society actors, human rights organizations, research institutions and the private sector all at once.
A market-based approach—
Food price stability is at the crux of achieving long-term food security. Over the past several years, stagnant or declining agricultural yield in developing countries was caused by decreasing public and private investment in staple food crops and agriculture overall. Lower crop yields, coupled rising demands for food due to population growth and rising household incomes in some parts of the world, has led to volatile food prices.
Poverty is the number one cause of food insecurity. Therefore, growth of the rural sector and overall economic growth in developing countries are both necessary conditions for alleviating world hunger. The two go hand in hand — historically, rural sector growth feeds directly into the growth of nonagricultural sectors in developing countries. Food security economist Peter Timmer observes that “in all successful escapes from hunger over the past two centuries…, markets have done the heavy lifting… At the same time, none of the escapes from hunger was driven entirely by market forces.” The necessary collaboration between state action and market forces accounts for why alleviating global poverty has proven historically difficult.
State-level policymakers must be at the center of ending world hunger.
They must work with international agencies such as The Food and Agricultural Organization, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Programme and the World Bank to complete regular and frequent national food security assessments to generate informed policy responses to food insecurity in their countries.
Work with Global Nutrition Databases and the World Health Organization to use data to orient policy strategies.
Enact policies aimed at helping smallholder farmers who are especially vulnerable to fluctuations in the agricultural markets.
Create or strengthen social protection systems and other public goods to shelter people from the most dire outcomes of hunger and malnutrition
Recognize that enacting protectionist trade and tax measures such as export price controls, export restrictions and subsidies for domestic producers will only distort markets in the short run and exacerbate market failures in the long run.
In the longer run, work with private market actors, civil society organizations, farmer organizations, philanthropic agents, the U.N. and Bretton Woods institutions to organize aid, the delivery of food assistance and other support and prevention programs.
Work together and with the UN and other international organizations to strengthen coordination between countries, philanthropies, farmer organizations, regional development banks and multicultural banks to generate a global response to food insecurity.
The private sector can ease the most dire consequences of hunger.
Food companies can partner with state agents and non-governmental development organizations to directly provide meals to hungry populations via the donation of unsold, good-quality food. In 2019, Walmart donated 640 million pounds of food, the majority consisting of fruits, vegetables, and meat, through philanthropic investments in countries struggling with food insecurity.
Private agricultural product companies can also funnel money into research and development of new innovative strategies or products to generate more agricultural output and encourage sustainable farming practices in developing countries.
Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies can invest in developing medical and nutritional products specifically designed to combat malnutrition problems such as micronutrient deficiency. These products can prevent childhood illness and help break the cycle of poverty and boost economic productivity in countries facing severe poverty.
Financial services companies can work with local governments to empower smallholder farmers and small businesses by boosting their access to credit, information, markets, and other financial services, effectively working to revitalize agricultural and nonagricultural sectors and encourage economic growth.
What you can do.
Donate money to the UN World Food Programme and Action against Hunger.
Donate food to food banks and community organizations.
Volunteer time to local food programs, many of which depend solely on volunteerism.
Adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. One of the top causes of world hunger is the use of resources on the production of animal products. The production of dairy, meat and eggs eat up valuable resources and market forces encourage farmers to shift from the production of staple crops to animal-based foods, which compromises the food supply chain and exacerbates world hunger.