World Hunger and Poverty Blog

India’s newly declared war on junk food represents a sharp shift in direction for the government, which until recently had been inclined to believe that it made little sense to focus on the problems of overeating when people were still dying of malnutrition.

This week, however, [India’s health minister] Ramadoss declared that the Health Ministry needed to wage a battle on two fronts, simultaneously fighting hunger and obesity.

His acknowledgment of these coexisting crises implicitly recognized the rapid emergence of two parallel Indias. He conceded that there was a growing gulf in the nation’s health concerns, a rift between the diseases of affluence and the diseases of poverty.

While the nation’s attention was caught up by the debate on how to stop India’s 300 million members of the middle class from bingeing on sugar-laden, fat-heavy diets, the National Family Health Survey was analyzing its latest data, which (when they are published formally next year) are expected to show that, despite the country’s economic boom, around 50 percent of Indian children under 5 are malnourished. Also, in some states of north India, the numbers of severely malnourished children are rising fast.

“We have one India which is galloping on the economic front, while in the other India, human development indices say we are 126th in the world,” Ramadoss said, referring to India’s low ranking out of 177 countries in the UN list.

“India is on its way to becoming a superpower, but unfortunately, 50 to 60 percent of children under 3 years are undernourished,” he told journalists covering a nutrition conference in Delhi, adding that he felt “ashamed” at the stark contrast in problems facing the nation.

“We have the IT revolution, but then we have this pitiful infant mortality,” he said. “We have on one side undernutrition and on the other side overnutrition.”

Read entire iht.com article by Amelia Gentleman.

The culture of gluttonous consumption causes these epidemics. Instead of engaging in self-beneficial activities and achieving long-term goals, the people of the world shortsightedly engage in self-destructive and addictive behaviors. That is why the overworked working class of the world labor and struggle but never seem able to create a better individual life for themselves or world for all. It goes beyond food, consumerism extends to an assortment of petty and often self-destructive crap, from TV to overpriced mall-bought clothes and fancy cars – most of which people buy on credit. The poor do the same thing: Instead of fighting to bring themselves and their communities out of poverty and oppression, these people often engage in these short-sighted and self-destructive behaviors such as drug use.

Thus, instead of having a happy meritocratic world, we have this problematic world in which on one side an obese person buying pharmaceutical drugs from the grocery store with her credit card, and on the other side a skinny crackhead starving in the street.

What do you think?

Progress on attaining the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which seek to tackle poverty, hunger and other social ills by 2015, remains slow but countries are realizing the importance of the life-and-death targets and increasingly know what needs to be done to attain them, the UN adviser on the project said today, sounding a note of optimism.

However Jeffrey Sachs, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the MDGs, said he was under no illusion that while talk about the goals by donor countries or organizations was welcome, it means little unless concrete action is taken to back up their words.

The MDGs were agreed by world leaders at the UN’s Millennium Summit in 2000. They cover eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and fostering a global partnership for development.

Read entire UN.org article.

Unless the world makes fundamental changes to its approach to epidemics such as poverty, hunger, and disease, the world will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals. When analyzed under recognition of growing threats such as the depleting oil supply and increasing global militarization & violence, the slow progress on the MD Goals implies a more grim future. Hopefully, the world will soon make radical changes to its behavior towards its socioeconomic problems, and greatly accelerate progress on the MDGs.

What do you think?

The story of hunger in Vermont is told through vignettes: The father who forgoes food so his children have more to eat; the mother who cuts the milk with water to make it last longer; the child who is eligible for school food programs, but goes hungry rather than stand out as “poor” among the lunchtime crowd of peers.

The story of hunger in Vermont is told through statistics: About 23,000 Vermont households are hungry, according to the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger. That figure includes 21,000 children.

The number of Vermonters going hungry essentially doubled between 1999 and 2001, marking the sharpest increase in the nation.

Children are especially vulnerable. About 11 percent of Washington County children under the age of five live in families with an income below the poverty level; just under 2,000 households receive food stamps – less than half those experts believe are eligible for the nutritional help.

Hungry children begin to appear thin. Eventually their growth and development is slowed. They might experience health problems, cognitive dysfunction, and increased aggression.

The federal government officially designates these Vermonters as experiencing “food insecurity with hunger.” Call it what you want, it essentially means that some of our neighbors are in need of a helping hand to keep food on the table and their children fed.

The reasons for hunger are fairly well known. According to the Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, “poverty is the strongest predictor of hunger … lack of affordable housing, low wages, high unemployment, a decrease in the number of local, affordable grocery stores, and lack of public transportation” are contributing factors.

Read entire timesargus.com article.

Unfortunately, the problem of hunger and poverty extends beyond Vermont to the entire world. Similarly, the descriptions of hungry children suffering in Vermont apply to the children suffering throughout the world. I hope that not only Vermont, but also the entire world comes together to put an end to the terrible plagues of hunger and poverty, and provide equal opportunity to every person in the world, especially children.

The role of agriculture in addressing the [Africa’s] economic development is a foregone conclusion. Business as usual will not improve food productivity on the continent. Africa needs to change its ways in order to be able to feed its people and ensure its main source of economic development – agriculture – grows and develops. Prosperity by the farmer will influence economic growth and the management and handling of other factors such as infrastructure. Innovative agriculture, acquired through novel relationships with technology developers, and developed through mutually satisfactory relationships with partners in research, development and commercialisation, should lead to prosperity for the smallholder farmer, to food security and economic growth for Africa.

“The world has declared war on hunger – but in Africa, images abound of pot-bellied, emaciated, wide-eyed and lifeless children – some still sucking their dead mother’s breasts – stretching out empty bowls for something anything to arrest the pangs of hunger they suffer; of vultures, waiting patiently for the only sign of surviving human life – the little boy on stick thin legs – to take his last breath before it pounces.”

“These are the images of Africa that speak of Africa and tell the African story. These are the images that splatter overseas media, from which Africa gains its reputation. But Africa can be beautiful. Where are the beautiful and melodious sounds of African children playing hoop, tending to their parent’s animals and playing tricks on each other? Where are the sounds of singing that fill the air as Africans celebrate bumper harvests or the marriage of their children or the coming of age of their youngsters? Where are the voices of women happily sharing stories as they harvest in the fields among chirping birds and children happily playing around them? Where are the images of the proud African peoples standing majestically and beautifully for all to see?”

“A revival of Africa’s agriculture is necessary for faster realisation of the continent’s development. But it requires commitment to genuine social change that will benefit the continent. Business as usual won’t suffice. A different approach to dealing with issues that have dogged the continent for years is required. To make a real difference in its current state, Africa should aim for a higher state of being in addition to attaining food sufficiency. It should aim to take up its rightful place in world trade and economy and to sit at the same table with the rest of the world as a contributor to issues relevant to the survival of the human race and it can only do this if it achieves its own economic development.”

Read entire allAfrica.com article by Max Amuchie.

I recommend following the above link to the three-page article by Max Amuchie, from which the excerpt is taken. In it, he describes the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), including the hunger and poverty problem in Africa and the method the AATF uses to work on solving it.

I think the article raises another point that extends from Africa to all the underdeveloped and/or impoverished places in the world: Generally, impoverished places and poor people have potential, but they just need the opportunity to develop and help themselves; Lest we forget the rich history of Africa, and the many scientific advances from that continent. Globally speaking, so-called “third-world” countries tend to be places abundant in resources, such as oil and diamonds, production, and hard-working peoples.

What do you think?