Editorials and opinion

Bold action needed to put people first Tanya Dawkins Global-Local Links Project, Aldo Caliari Center of Concern. Karen Hansen-Kuhn and Alexandra Spieldoch Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Lane Vanderslice Hunger Notes November 23, 2010

How can you talk seriously about US government deficit reduction when Bush-era temporary tax cuts cannot be allowed to expire and the nation is fighting two long-lasting and very costly wars? (opinion) Bob Herbert New York Times November 8, 2010

Why does the Obama administration think foreclosures are good? New York Times November 5, 2010

Attention Whole Foods Shoppers! Stop obsessing about arugula. Your "sustainable" mantra -- organic, local, and slow -- is no recipe for saving the world's hungry millions. Robert Paarlberg Foreign Policy April 29, 2010

The worst of the pain of the economic crisis is felt by low income households--the lowest income group had unemployment of 30 percent while the highest income group had unemployment of 3 percent--yet there is a willful refusal by politicians and the media to focus on those who are suffering the most  Bob Herbert New York Times February 8, 2010

The poor are powerless and thus we remain silent about Bauer's remarks Leonard Pitts Jr.  Miami Herald February 3, 2010 Also see Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of South Carolina : "Don't feed the poor. They'll breed." YouTube  January 22, 2010

Equatorial Guinea: Its per capita income is equal to Italy, while two-thirds of its population live in extreme poverty and its infant and child mortality rate is among the world's highest.  Why? Tutu Alicante and Lisa Misol Pambazuka News  January 14, 2010

Letters to the Editor

(Because of a concern for the privacy of young people over the internet, we only publish initials of people writing letters to Hunger Notes, as a reasonable percentage of those writing to us are young.)

(October 9, 2010) Dear Hunger Notes I am an artist in Tampa, fl. I recently drew a picture that came to my mind to raise awareness about global hunger, maybe you can help me have it seen . I have attached the file, let me no what you think. Thank you and God bless you.
Usman Khan

Dear Usman,
Thank you for sending your picture along, which our readers can see by clicking here (pdf file). It is an excellent visual statement of the role of great income inequality in creating hunger. Send your picture along as a tif file and we will use it as an editorial cartoon!
Editor, Hunger Notes

(May 20, 2010) Dear Hunger Notes,

In Josephine Carson Locke Elementary School (Chicago, IL), a group of 7th graders in room 213 were assigned a project.  The goal of this project was to spread the awareness of any issue in the world and we chose world hunger.  We chose this because we learned many devastating facts.  For example, we learned that a person dies every 7 seconds due to poverty.

Mostly everyone in America takes everything for granted. For example, mostly everyone in Africa doesn't even have a home, but we do, and we take it for granted.  Even us.  Our mission is to spread awareness, not to get the most donations.  We have to show that America also cares about other countries in the world.  We are not the only ones on Earth.  If those in need had everything they needed to survive, it would change the world.  So far we raised about $100.00! We hope this will help reduce world hunger and to spread awareness.

From your contributors,
A.N., H.J., I.G., A.C., J.A.D., and B.L.

Dear A.N., H.J., I.G., A.C., J.A.D., and B.L.,
Hunger Notes and the World Hunger Education Service thank you very much for your May 12 contribution of $113.00, done through your fundraising project. It was inspiring to us to see that you (at what we consider a young age :)) recognized the importance of world hunger, and did something about it.

As you are probably aware, your contribution will be used 100 percent to assist hungry people. Each month WHES makes a contribution to a specific organization working to aid impoverished people such as Food for the Hungry, Action Against Hunger, and Trickle Up. Your donation will be used for this purpose. We do this through the mechanism of our Hunger Quiz, which helps students like you and others gain an increased awareness of hunger. Our hunger quiz page appears at http://www.worldhunger.org/contributefood.htm. We are grateful for your support. Your contribution will enable us to help people in the United States and elsewhere understand more about world hunger, and help us support the cause of hungry people. We acknowledge your support in various places on our website, including the hunger quiz page and our financial contributors’ page http://www.worldhunger.org/associates.htm Best wishes,

Thank you very much for your outstanding efforts to understand world hunger yourselves, to communicate that to others, and to raise money to assist those who are hungry. Good job!  

Editor, Hunger Notes

(January 28, 2010)  Dear Hunger Notes,

My name is B.A. and I am a student at Central York High School in Pennsylvania. I am doing a project on social issues and mine is world hunger. Thank you very much for agreeing to answer my questions. Here they are.

1.How has the amount of hungry people all over the world changed over the past few years? Why did this change occur?

2. Explain all of the things that Hunger Notes does to help stop world hunger.

3. How have Hunger Notes actions had an affect on the problem of world hunger?

4. Do you think that everybody can help stop world hunger? If so, how could they help?

5. Do you think that population is one of the main reasons that world hunger is caused? Why or why not? Please explain.

Thanks again,

B.A.

Dear BA,

Here are my answers to your questions:

1.How has the amount of hungry people all over the world changed over the past few years? Why did this change occur?  The most recent estimate, released on October 14, 2009 by FAO,  says that 1.02 billion people are undernourished, a sizable increase from its 2006 estimate of  854 million people. The increase has been due to three factors: 1) neglect of agriculture relevant to very poor people by governments and international agencies; 2) the current worldwide economic crisis, and 3) the significant increase of food prices in the last several years which has been devastating to those with only a few dollars a day of total income to spend. 1.02 billion people is 15 percent of the estimated world population of 6.8 billion. Nearly all of the undernourished are in developing countries. 

2. Explain all of the things that Hunger Notes does to help stop world hunger.  The principal thing that we do is inform people about world hunger. This year, approximately 700,000 visitors came to our website in search of information about world hunger.  We also contribute some money, through our hunger quiz (http://www.worldhunger.org/contributefood.htm)  to organizations that are directly involved in helping poor and hungry people.  We also encourage people to contribute to organizations assisting hungry people and to take some action against hunger, such as political action.  See our section You can! Help reduce hunger (http://www.worldhunger.org/reduce.htm).

3. How have Hunger Notes actions had an effect on the problem of world hunger?  We have done the actions described in 2. We do not know, what, if any, impact our actions have had. There are approximately 304 million people in the United States.  The 700,000 visitors to our website represent about .2 of one percent of the population of the United States. We have helped those people understand more about hunger.  What actions they are taking to reduce hunger we do not know, but our impact consists in helping them understand and take action to reduce hunger.

4. Do you think that everybody can help stop world hunger? If so, how could they help?

Everyone can help reduce world hunger. The three basic actions that we suggest are
--learn more about hunger
--contribute financially to an organization working to reduce hunger
--spend some of your time working with an organization that is trying to reduce hunger, such as a local food bank, or an organization such as Bread for the World that tries to get the US government to adopt policies to reduce hunger.

In the words of the old poem:
Little drops of water
Little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean
And the beauteous land
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our earth an Eden,
Like the heaven above

 5. Do you think that population is one of the main reasons that world hunger is caused? Why or why not? Please explain. 

Certainly the large number of people in the world is straining the world's resources.  Less population would mean less of a strain.  Another major source of the strain is the great inequality in world income and command over resources. The poorest people in the world are much poorer than people in the United States and elsewhere in  the world.  We estimate that hungry people in the world live on an average of $1.25 per day. The median household income in the United States in 2006-08 is $50,233 and the average household size was 2.61 family members (see Census Bureau United States Fact Sheet).  Doing some division, income per person per day in the United States is $54.77. Thus, ,the average person in the United States has 43 times more income than hungry people in the world.  So it would not be correct, we believe,  to consider only population as a factor.  (Expressed simplistically, something like "if only hungry people would not have so many children, there would be less hungry people.)  How the totality of humans in the world adjust their lifestyles, including number of children, to reduce hunger, is not a question that can be answered in a few sentences, though it is a fundamental question.

Editor, Hunger Notes

(November 28, 2009) Dear Hunger Notes,  I am doing a paper, and I was wondering how many people in Africa could be fed with $250 million .  Your help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks! LJ

Dear LJ,

How many people in Africa could be fed with $250 million dollars? This is a great basic question--thanks very much for asking it. Although this is a simple question, I don't think the answer is given anywhere. I will give two answers from differing perspectives.

The first answer is based on basic calculations. $1.25 a day is the lowest poverty level that is measured (by the World Bank). At this level of income, a high percentage is spent on food, say $1 per day. So, the number of people that could be fed in a year would be $250 million divided by $365 per person, or 68,493 people. This is feeding at a very basic level, and with no distribution costs--which are typically many times the cost of the actual food.

The second answer is based on World Food Program (WFP) estimates of expenditures and beneficiaries.
WFP says that in 2008 donors contributed $5 billion that went to alleviating hunger for an estimated 102 million people, or $50 per person. (See WFP 2009 Annual Report, p 4 http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/newsroom/wfp204445.pdf ) So $250 million would feed 50 million people. WFP is clearly not bearing all the food costs for the entire year for the 102 million people that it served.

I hope this is helpful and not just confusing!

Editor, Hunger Notes

(November 20, 2009) Dear Hunger Notes, I would like to know the answer to some questions about whether a vegan lifestyle would influence world hunger.

If keeping animals for meat and dairy products takes lots of space and raises the price of crops, that could be fed to people instead of animals, wouldn't it mean that world hunger would be practically solved if the majority of people became or vegan? Wouldn't the promotion of veganism be the ultimate solution for world hunger? Which method would help eliminate world hunger more, sponsoring a charity or adopting a vegan lifestyle?

Thank you very much for reading!

Sincerely yours, MA

Dear MA,
Sorry for the delay in replying.  Everyone having a vegan lifestyle would certainly reduce world hunger, but it would, in my view, by no means end hunger.  Thank you for raising this important issue which does require some thought!

If everyone were vegetarian/vegan, it would certainly free up quite a bit of land and other resources for the production of plants directly for humans rather than for feeding animals which are then used for human food. As a ballpark estimate, it takes 10 pounds or more of grains to produce one pound of meat.  So eliminating meat would provide the ability to produce much more grain directly for human consumption.  This would be very good.

What problems do I see with this as a way to end world hunger?

A major part of the world hunger problem is that those who are  hungry are very poor.  The poorest people--about 1 billion people-- live on $1.25 a day or less. This lack of income of the poorest people is the major cause of hunger,  we believe.  (See World Hunger Facts http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm for a longer explanation.) It would still be a major problem even if everyone in the world was vegan. 

The poorest people in the world are much poorer than people in the United States and throughout the world.   The median income in the United States (in 2007, see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States) is $50,233.  Making the necessary adjustments to compare these numbers directly, it turns out that the average person in the United States has 37 times more income than hungry people in the world.   In light of this, what might happen if everyone in the United States became vegan? It certainly might be--and I certainly think it would be--that it would not be profitable/make economic sense for farmers to turn their efforts completely or even significantly  to produce food for hungry people.  Farmers would produce other agricultural products for people with more money than the poorest.  A clear example would be ethanol for US consumers with cars. Notwithstanding the previous statement, a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle in the entire world would produce a significant decline in agricultural prices, which would benefit the poorest people, though not nearly enough to end hunger, in my assessment.

A key value of vegans is compassion for other living things.  This value, if we try to apply it through the complexity of the world and its behaviors, will lead to a dramatic reduction in hunger. I don't think that one action, such as adopting a vegan lifestyle--as important as this would be--is  the only answer necessary. Thus I think we have to act to end hunger in various ways, and contributing to a charity would be a second important way to reduce hunger.  The 'golden rule'  is "do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Maybe the 'silver rule' is "do as you would have others do."  Certainly contributing to charity and being a vegan does provide a valuable example for others.

Editor, Hunger Notes

(November 5, 2009) Dear Hunger Notes,

I have been reading through the website, and I wanted to know is there any way I can get more information on the fact that starvation/hunger is a problem from not having water, and solutions that could help to support the development of world hunger. Thanks!  VW

Dear VW,
Thank you for an excellent question.

There is a reasonably clear relationship between the supply of water and hunger. The basic fact is very clear. If there is not enough water, plants (and animals) die, and the food that humans depend on will not be available.
I don't know that that your question about water and hunger has been summarized in a brief form.

A major cause of hunger has always been drought. This of course is still present today. You might look at the World Food Program website to see how it classifies food emergencies. Many are due to drought. The World Food Program is a very large international organization that responds to food emergencies. Go to its website at www.wfp.org and type in drought in the search box in the upper right hand corner of that page. This gives the areas where WFP thinks that drought is important. An important additional fact to add is that there are many areas in the world where food production is very limited due to scarce water resources. There are a lot of arid and semi-arid places in the world where people live and where lack of water limits food production, but where the water shortage is not acute enough and/or widespread enough to involve the World Food Program.

Solutions.

We are talking about fresh water. There is plenty of salt water, but it can't be used as is for crops, land-dwelling animals, or humans. The two principal natural sources of fresh water are the sky, and a river system (frequently including mountains as well) that carries water from places and times where it falls in abundance through the river course to the sea. (There are other sources of fresh water as well including ground water and desalination.)

There are, to our mind, no easy solutions. Two major problems are deforestation and climate change.

Deforestation: Forests (and, in general,non-agricultural ecosystems) create their own, much wetter, climate and ecosystem. Much of the rain that falls on cropland will be evaporated by the sun. A significantly larger amount of rain that falls in a forest will not be evaporated but will be retained by the soil or contribute to river flow. Yet in the past 50 years there has been great deforestation in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which has and will reduce available water in these geographical areas. (Europe and the United States went through their own deforestation much earlier.)

Climate change is leading to a hotter climate which does various things, including reducing available water.

Major solutions proposed for water scarcity have been:
--More effective utilization of available water, including conservation methods such as storing and rationing water.
--Reducing the amount of greenhouse gases, which will slow the worldwide temperature increase.

In summary, I think that water scarcity will continue to increase rapidly. As poor people are the ones most likely to be found in marginal resource situations, including lack of water, I think they will be harmed greatly, through hunger, and through lack of water itself.

Editor, Hunger Notes

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