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| Saturday, 16 October 2004 |
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'World Food Day': A world without hunger: fantasy or reality? by Lionel Wijesiri By the time this day is over more than 40,000 people, mostly children, will have died. This is death toll equivalent to one hundred jumbo-jet disasters each day. Today and every day. The loss of human lives will add up to more than 14 million each year. Most will have suffered from a 'silent' assault - the kind that never makes headlines: Hunger.
The causes of hunger are many. Famine is often in the news but is only responsible for approximately 10 per cent of hunger related deaths. The other 90 per cent of deaths are caused by chronic and persistent hunger. Continual lack of food kills and lack of the right kind of food leads to death as it weakens people's defences against disease. The right to have enough to eat is the most basic of human rights yet in a world of plenty there are over 800 million starving or undernourished people. Hunger not only kills people, but it also takes away the ability to work and learn. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), hunger 'undermines the peace and prosperity of nations and traps individuals in a vicious cycle of poor nutrition, ill health and diminished capacity for learning and work that is passed on from one generation to the next.' Malnutrition exists in some form in most developing countries. More than a third of the world's people suffer from deficiencies in vitamins and minerals that are essential for proper growth and development. These deficiencies, which can lead to blindness, mental retardation and physical growth problems, can be alleviated through a varied and balanced diet. Malnutrition is one of the prime causes of low-birth-weight (LBW) babies. LBW survivors are likely to suffer growth retardation and illness throughout childhood, adolescence and into adulthood, and growth-retarded adult women are likely to carry on the vicious cycle of malnutrition by giving birth to LBW babies. Some 30 million infants are born each year in developing countries with impaired growth caused by poor nutrition in the womb. Even mild forms of these deficiencies can limit a child's development and learning capacity early in life, which can lead to cumulative deficits in school performance, resulting in higher school drop-out rates and a high burden of illiteracy in our future populations. Putting an end to hunger necessarily starts with ensuring that enough food is produced and available for everyone. However, simply growing enough food does not guarantee the elimination of hunger. Access by all people at all times to enough nutritionally adequate and safe food for an active and healthy life - food security - must be guaranteed. World Food Day World Food Day was first observed in 1981 with the goal that "food for all" should become a human right for this generation and for future generations. At the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome, world leaders from 186 countries adopted the Declaration on World Food Security, reaffirming "... the right of everyone to have adequate access to safe and nutritious food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger." These leaders pledged to reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 50 percent by the year 2015. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) established World Food Day on October 16, the Organization's birthday, to remind the world of the Organization's search for a lasting solution to hunger and poverty. More than 150 countries observe this event every year. The theme for World Food Day campaign for 2004 is "Biodiversity for Food Security". It will highlight biodiversity's role in ensuring that people have sustainable access to enough high-quality food to lead active and healthy lives. An Information note released by FAO for World Food Day-2004 says: "Biological diversity is fundamental to agriculture and food production. People rely on the variety of food, shelter, and goods for their livelihood. Yet, humans put increasing pressure on species and their environments. As a result, many plants and animals are at risk, as well as essential natural processes such as pollination by insects and the regeneration of soils by micro-organisms". "A rich variety of cultivated plants and domesticated animals are the foundation for agricultural biodiversity. Yet people depend on just 14 mammal and bird species for 90 percent of their food supply from animals. And just four species - wheat, maize, rice and potato - provide half of our energy from plants". "Apart from the absolute number of species, it is also essential to conserve genetic diversity within each species. Modern agriculture has encouraged many farmers to adopt uniform high-yielding types of plant or animal. But when food producers abandon diversity, varieties and breeds may die out - along with specialized traits. This rapidly diminishing gene pool worries experts. Having a broad range of unique characteristics allows plants and animals to be bred to meet changing conditions, while giving scientists the raw materials they need to develop more productive and resilient crop varieties and breeds". "Rather than a single crop variety that guarantees a high yield, farmers in developing countries are more likely to need an assortment of crops that grow well in harsh climates, or animals with resistance to disease. For the poorest farmers, the diversity of life may be their best protection against starvation. Consumers also benefit from diversity through a wide choice of plants and animals. This contributes to a nutritious diet, particularly important for rural communities with limited access to markets". "Since the birth of agriculture 10 000 years ago, farmers, fishermen, pastoralists and forest dwellers have been managing genetic diversity by selecting plants and animals to meet environmental conditions and food needs. Farmers everywhere possess priceless local knowledge, including a highly-tuned sense of how to match the right variety or breed with a particular agricultural ecosystem". Rich and Poor That is how FAO advises the world to fight hunger. But Prof. Basil Sivanathan, a University don in Contemporary Economics in a USA campus has another point of view. "Easier way," he says. "World Food Day seems an appropriate occasion to consider both where rich nations' food come from and also who's hungry in the world. The two topics are connected. Poor nations need to export food to the rich nations, if they're to have half a chance of alleviating poverty there. But rich nations are making it difficult for them to do so". "Poor nations don't have much industry, but they do have farms. The corn, wheat, cotton, sugar, rice, and dairy products they produce are just about the only things many of them have to trade for what they need from the rest of the world". "Poor nations can produce a lot of these staples cheaper than rich nations, so you might think there's a natural fit. Think again, because rich nations have farmers, too. Not many of them, mind you, but they're politically powerful. Fewer than 3 percent of Americans work directly on farms, but agri-business is big business in the US. It's the same in Europe and Japan". "Rich countries spend hundreds of billions a year subsidizing their farmers, making it almost impossible for poor nations to compete. Japan gives rice farmers seven times what it costs them to produce rice, which allows farmers to sell the rice for very little, shutting out cheap rice produced in Thailand and other developing nations. By blocking access to the market, rich nations end up depriving poor nations of an opportunity to improve their living standards". "The yearly subsidy US gives just to American cotton farmers is three times its total aid to Asia or Africa. From 2001 to 2002, the US granted its cotton farmers $3 billion in subsidies". "Poor nations don't need foreign aid. They need a fair shot at markets in rich nations. While the most recent round of World Trade Organization talks collapsed, rest assured, farmers in rich countries won't give up without a fight, but poor nations have almost nothing to fight with". The Professor concludes :"On World Food Day the rich nations should determine to remind themselves that poor nations need to export their food. By preventing them from doing so, their farm subsidies are keeping poor nations poor and their people hungrier and hungrier". |
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