Feeding the Hungry Food for Thought

Hunger and poverty Over 850 million people across the world are going hungry today. Each day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. Hunger is a direct result of extreme poverty, where people cannot afford to meet their most basic need - food.

Hunger Facts In 2005, over 10 million children died before the age of 5. Diseases take a larger toll than starvation Malnourishment greatly increases the risk of death from diarrhea, measles, respiratory diseases and malaria. In the developing world, 27% of children under 5 are severely underweight

Factors affecting food security Population growth Moving up the food chain Topsoil erosion Overirrigation Water scarcity Overharvesting the oceans

Population growth Everyone born prior to 1964 has seen a doubling of the world’s population Such rapid population growth does not slow progress but reverses it. Having 90 million more mouths to feed a year means less for those already here In terms of countries, it is like adding an extra United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and Sweden every year. Or the equivalent of adding another New York City to the planet every month.

Moving up the food chain World meat production in the 1990’s was four times as much as 1950’s in low income countries, where the majority of food can be a single starchy staple such as rice, an increase in income quickly translates into more meat in the diet as well as a variety of fruits and vegetables. Meat consumption varies from 115 kilograms per person annually in the US to 1 kilogram in India.

Grain consumption 37% of the grain gown worldwide goes into meat production. In low income countries, grain consumption per person averages about 200 kilograms per year. In the US, grain consumption per person averages about 800 kilograms - a good portion in the form of meat production.

Topsoil Erosion 10,000 years ago, before intensive agriculture, topsoil eroded at a rate of 10 billion tons a year. The rate was slow enough for the soil to be replaced naturally Present rates are twice as much, at 20 billion tons Erosion is happening at twice the rate that the soil can be replaced. Trying to increase crop production by cutting down forests, adding more fertilizers, and irrigating new lands might be pointless if the topsoil is eroding away.

Overirrigation The world irrigates one tenth of all cropland. The US irrigates nearly a quarter of its cropland Irrigation causes salt to build up in soil which eventually ruins the land Over half of the world’s irrigated farmland may become useless because of salt accumulation The problem is worse in dry regions because of the lack of rainfall which is required to flush the additional salts out of the soil

Water scarcity 70 per cent of the world’s water use is to irrigate farmland We drink roughly 4 litres of water, but the food we consume each day requires 2000 litres of water to produce. The demand for water is exceeding what can be sustained naturally by rivers and aquifers (underground rivers)

Water scarcity Surface water is already being exploited to its fullest; many countries have turned to tapping into underground water resources Water tables are falling in dozens of countries which provide food to half the world’s population, including China, India and the United States Less water available means less crop production.

Overharvesting the oceans Between 1950 and 1990, the fish catch from our oceans climbed from 19 million tons to 85 million tons – almost five times as much. Per capita fish consumption has gone up from 8 kilograms annually to 15 kilograms – almost double. Many fish producing areas today are in decline or have collapsed, as the Canadian cod fishery did in the1990’s A 2003 Canadian-German study found that 90 percent of the world’s large predatory fish have disappeared in the last 50 years.

Sources Erickson, Jon. The Human Volcano; Population Growth as Geologic Force. New York: Facts on File, 1995. Brown, Lester R.. Outgrowing the Earth. New York: Norton, 2004. Brown, Lester R.. Full House. New York: Norton, 1994. Bread for the World. <http://www.bread.org>