The Hunger Problem and Its Causes - Assignment Example

The Hunger Problem and Its Causes. The hunger problem and its causes Summary Ending hunger worldwide is a book written by a veteran food security analyst and researcher George Kent. In all his books, Kent describes the world and local food security situations providing answers to common questions and proposing solutions to the issue of food insecurity. In this book, which is composed of 12 chapters, Kent explores the problems of food insecurity and hunger in the world. Through well-researched chapters, Kent progressively brings out the problem and describes it in such a way that in the end he comes out with recommendations and a strategy that can work in the situation1. This paper will summarize and review the first three chapters of the book, giving the personal views of the information. The first chapter of the book is titled ‘Nutritional Problems’. In this chapter, the author explores the issue of the increased number of people in the world who are living in hunger and who are undernourished. The author takes into consideration the current statistics from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). These statistics indicate that the current population of undernourished people to be above one billion people in the world, an increase of more than 100 million in just one year. Kent uses this introductory chapter to provide a vivid picture of the hunger and food insecurity situation in the world. He expresses concerns that the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people suffering from hunger by 2015 might not become a reality. The second chapter of the book is titled ‘Widening Gaps. Kent in this chapter explores the basic cause of hunger and food insecurity. This baseline cause is the ever-widening gap between the poor and the rich. He starts to review this from a basic level of the economically different households who he expresses that they will have differing access to foods. This is significantly represented in the national and global perspective. From his representation, the widening gap economic ability gap between developed and underdeveloped countries is directly causing problems in the access of nutrition to many of the people in the developing and undevel0oped countries. He gives the current GDP of the 20 richest countries as more than 75 times that of the bottom 20 poorest countries as of 2008, up from 37 times in 19952. He also explores the widening gaps in consumption levels between the affluent and the poor and the patterns of food trade from food poor to the developed countries. According to Kent, the reason hunger and poverty have been a problem to get rid of is the powerlessness of the poor and the indifference of the rich and exploitation. Until the rich are willing to address the problems, the problems will still remain with us. The third chapter in this book has been titled ‘Food Trade’. It explores the issues related to the trade activities involving foods and how these issues, agreements and policies affect the food security in the world. From his review, the world trade concepts that are affecting food security are concentration of wealth and power, which is closely tied to the economic gap addressed in chapter 2. The author also looks at subsidies, foreign interests3. Land and sea grabbing, free trade agreements and remedies as some of the factors affecting food security. In the chapter, Kent also points out the weaknesses of local and global dedication to putting an end to food insecurity and hunger. He recommends the need for an approach that has not been utilized over the years, solving the food security problem from the bottom up. My Views Food insecurity is a threat to human life and by extension to the education level, economic productivity and overall health. The problem of hunger is now becoming a global issue with more and more people suffering from starvation and food insecurities. The perception that hunger is a problem facing the underdeveloped and poor countries is outdated and vague. The real situation at the moment is that more and more people in the world, including in developed countries like America are under the threat of food insecurity and starvation. The Millennium Development Goals set by FAO in 2000 have been abolished, and remain a dream due to the high food prices witnessed in the recent past. At that time, FAO considered the main purpose of mankind is to reduce the number of people suffering from starvation by half by the year 2015. However, this does not seem to be happening. In fact, there has been a recent increase in the number of people suffering from starvation and hunger. Failure to solve the hunger issue has resulted to a slowed economy in many countries4. This has made the situation to worsening in what appears like a vicious cycle of hunger and food insecurity. Many people have linked food insecurity to a variety of factors some of which are mythical and unreal. First, there have been claims that in relation to the changes in the climate and global warming, the world is producing less than enough food to feed the current population. However, statistics shows that the planet produces enough food, fruits and vegetables included providing adequate nutrition to all its inhabitants5. The problem arises due to the differences in economic ability. Most of those people in the poor countries starve because they cannot afford the food that the rich countries produce in excess in search for market. The problem of food insecurity can, therefore, not be blamed on the nature but as Kent puts it on the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Secondly, despite the growing general population especially in the underdeveloped world, the food insecurity is not expected to happen as a direct result. Hunger and food insecurity results, rather from social and economic disparities and inequality. The danger brought about by population growth is only [resent because the social and economic structures are faulty. Free trade is not a solution. This is because, in most of the countries that suffer from food insecurity, international trade has been on a speedy growth in the last ten years6. It is, therefore, clear that if free-trade is a solution, the experienced of increase in people in danger of starvation would not be increasing. Most of the countries who have no problem with hunger do not realize the extent of the problem. It has been claimed that the people who are suffering from starvation do not complain and hence the issue remains a problem. However, the reality is that with starvation, people are more focused on seeking for physical survival. They therefore, have less time and resources to organize for protest or plan for their plight. Questions 1. There are questions related to the issue of food insecurity and hunger in the world. The questions are: 2. How does the issue of economic inequality and the gap between the rich and the poor in the world result to food insecurity? 3. Is the modification of trade between countries a solution to the problem affecting the underdeveloped countries in terms of hunger? 4. Besides inequality and food trade, what are the other possible causes of hunger and food insecurities in the world? 5. Is the focus on social and economic modifications a good solution to food insecurity and hunger in the world? 6. How can an individual country or government deal with hunger and its causes in a local perspective? 7. What is the expected trend of food insecurity and malnutrition in the world based on the recent increase rate? References 1.2Kent, George. 2011. Ending hunger worldwide. Boulder, Colo: Paradigm Publishers. 3Bassett, Thomas J., and Alex Winter-Nelson. 2010. The Atlas of World Hunger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=534570. 4Butterly, John R., and Jack Shepherd. 2010. Hunger: the biology and politics of starvation. Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth College Press. 5Kent, George. 1984. The political economy of hunger: the silent holocaust. New York u.a: Praeger 6Shields, David Lyle. 1995. The color of hunger: race and hunger in national and international perspective. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. Read More