The Causes of Hunger

World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, even though there has been a 70 percent increase in population. This is enough to provide every single person with at least 2,720 kilocalories per person per day.

Image by dodo_anji via Flickr

Poverty is the main cause of hunger. The main problem is that many people do not have enough land to cultivate, or income to purchase, the food they need. Farmers cannot afford to buy the seed they need to grow the crops which would feed their families and tradesmen cannot afford the tools they need to work. Others have no land or no clean water or the chance of education which would provide them with a secure future. They do not have enough money to buy the food for themselves. This leads them to be too weak so they cannot work.

The main causes of poverty are land rights and ownership, the change of land use to non-productive purposes, the increasing emphasis on export-orientated agriculture, inefficient agricultural practices, war, famine, drought, over-fishing, poor crop yield and lack of democracy and rights.

One of the biggest causes of hunger is natural disasters. Floods, tropical storms and drought are increasing with terrible consequences for food security in developing countries.

The single most common cause of food shortages is drought. Crop failures and heavy livestock losses in parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya were caused by recurrent drought in 2006.

Climate change is making adverse natural conditions worse in many countries. Traditionally poor farmers in Ethiopia have sold off their livestock to pay for food when there has been no rain but there resources are being exhausted after successive

years of drought are becoming increasingly common.

The proportion of short and long-term food crises that have been caused by human action has more than doubled since 1992.  Conflict has been the major cause of these emergencies. Fighting displaces millions of people from their homes. The conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan has uprooted more than a million people since 2004 causing a major food crisis in an area that has normally had good rains and crops.

Food can become a weapon during wars. Soldiers will seize or destroy food and livestock and destroy local markets in order to starve their enemies into submission. They will mine fields and contaminate wells so that farmers are forced to abandon their land. Malnutrition is reducing in the more peaceful parts of Africa, such as Ghana and Malawi.

Precious arable land is diverted to non-productive use so that crops can be exported rather than used to feed the population. Examples of non-productive use include growing tobacco, the production of tea and coffee to be sold to wealthier countries, growing flowers to sell to wealthy countries, certain dam projects, growing sugar cane for export and beef and fast food industries for export.

Deforestation, poor farming methods, over-cropping and overgrazing exhaust the fertility of the land and farmland is increasingly under threat from desertification, erosion and salination. Since independence in 1963, Kenya’s forest cover has shrunk from 10 percent of its 582,650 square-kilometres territory to a mere 1.7 percent, altering rain and catchment patterns that are essential for the country’s agrarian economy.

Improved agricultural output offers the best solution in the long term however many developing countries do not have the infrastructure necessary. They lack roads, irrigation and warehouses which increases the cost of transport, and causes unreliable water supplies and shortage of storage. These problems limit agricultural yields and access to food.  The majority of developing countries depend on agriculture but their governments are placing more emphasis on urban development in their economic planning.

The spread of HIV/AIDS across Africa has had a devastating effect on affected communities, making it difficult to cope with problems and making them more vulnerable to hazards.

Sub-Saharan Africa has just over 10% of the world’s population but has over 60% of all people living with AIDS, 25.8 million people, according to the World Health Organisation. Young children and the elderly are most affected by conventional famines and diseases but HIV/AIDS kills the very young adults whose labour traditionally enabled communities to cope with drought and hunger. This leaves the burden of care on the very young and elderly or orphans living on the streets as their extended families are unable to care for them.