1. World Hunger 10 Myths Food First

2. Myth 1 Too Little Food… Reality: Abundance of food
2,900 calories/person produced worldwide above and beyond grain for animal feed or non-food uses (ethanol).
Most people too poor to buy the food
Many hungry countries are net exporters of food
¼ of food is wasted
Vietnam food market

3. Myth 1 (continued) …Too Many People
Reality:
World is undergoing demographic transition
Birth rates dropping due to decline in death rates
No direct correlation between population and hunger
Hunger in Nigeria
Sparsely populated
Wealth in Netherlands
Densely populated
Population growth due to poverty and inequity
People’s lives must improve before birth rates drop

4. Myth 2 Climate Change Makes Hunger Inevitable
Reality:
Food production can be much more efficient
Reduction in eating meat will help
Human institutions, policies
determine who will eat during hard times
Food is always available
To those who can afford it
The poor suffer the most
Famine in Ethiopia

5. Myth 3 Only Industrial Agriculture & GMOs Can Feed a Hungry World
Reality:
Industrial Agriculture is not Sustainable:
Does not provide solution to long term production problems
Erosion increasing
Economic power concentrated
Inequity increases
Green Revolution benefited wealthy
Poor could not afford to buy grain
“Father” of the Green Revolution

6. Myth 4 Organic and Ecological Farming Can’t feed a hungry world
Reality:
Organic Farming is productive, sustainable and holistic
“Agroecology is an evolving practice of growing food within communities that is power-dispersing and power creating—enhancing the dignity, knowledge, and capacities of all involved.”

7. Myth 5 We Have to Choose Between Greater Fairness and More Production
Reality:
Justice and productivity go hand in hand
Small farmers
Work more intensively
Land Reform
Distributes land to small farmers
Successful in raising yields
Bolivian Farmer

8. Myth 6 The Free Market Can End Hunger
Reality:
Market is efficient in distributing food
If you can buy it!
To end world hunger via the market
Must have widely dispersed purchasing power
Is a role for government to help disperse purchasing power to the poor
Through taxes, credits, land reforms
Kenya Market

9. Myth 7 Free Trade is the Answer
Reality
In poorest countries
Exports boomed, hunger worsened
Brazilian soybeans
Feed cattle in Europe and Japan
Brazilian hunger grows
NAFTA: “race for the bottom”
Working people pitted against one another
1 million jobs lost in U.S.
1.3 million jobs lost in Mexico
Soybean Harvest in Brazil

10. Myth 8 U.S. Foreign Aid is the Best Way to Help the Hungry
Reality:
Most U.S. Food Aid works directly against the hungry
Aid used to
Impose free trade
Promote exports
Provide arms
Emergency humanitarian Aid
Only 6% of total
Undercuts grain production in receiving country
Benefits U.S. Grain companies
Little reaches the poor

11. Myth 9 It’s Not Our Problem
Reality:
Continued world poverty and hunger
is a threat to American
Jobs, wages
Working conditions
Helping free others from oppression
Helps free us too
Sweat Shop in India

12. Myth 10 Power is Too Concentrated for Real Change -- It’s Too Late
Reality:
Workers and poor farmers are organizing for justice throughout the world
People benefit from interconnection
Economic Democracy is the solution
Slavery used to produce food must end
Fair Trade must flourish
People have a right to eat