Feeding The World
About 2 billion people, mostly woman and children, are undernourished. But there’s enough food on Earth to feed everyone. It’s partly a problem of distribution and diet:
The world’s farmers produce enough calories today to feed 9 billion people. – Joel K Bourne Jr (The End of Plenty)
This food is produced mainly in the wealthier, developed countries which also eat more meat and dairy products than others – over two-thirds of the world’s farmland is used to grow feed for livestock. There’s certainly enough money: the world’s military spending is $1.5 trillion/year – just $30 billion of that could feed the hungry for a year.
Every 10 seconds we lose a child to hunger… we know how to fix this problem…
…says Josette Sheeran, head of the World Food Program. Her ideas for solving the hunger problem include:
- Encouraging breast-feeding: in poor countries only a tiny percentage of mothers breast-feed their children.
- Food banks: the community tops them up in good times with ‘food interest’ ready for use in lean times.
- Malnutrition-busting food packs: made from chick-peas and nutrients and costing only 17 cents a packet.
- Feeding children at schools: meals cost 25 cents a day and it also pushes up rates of girls’ attendance.
Tags: political change