GEOG 101b Introduction to Human Geography

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GEOG 101b Introduction to Human Geography
Lecture 16 Week 10 Food production and food
security

• Food security and hunger

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Contents of this lecture

• Food security and food insecurity
• Local to global hunger problems
• Why does hunger persist these days?

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1. Food security and food insecurity

• Food Security
• A community enjoys food security when all people,
  at all times
• have access to nutritious,
• safe,
• personally acceptable and culturally appropriate
  foods,
• produced in ways that are environmentally sound
  and socially just.

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Then food security is about

• Availability sufficient supplies of food for all
  people at all times
• Accessibility physical and economic access to
  food for all at all times
• Acceptability culturally acceptable and
  appropriate food and distribution systems
• Adequacy nutritional quality, safety, and
  sustainability of sources and methods of food
  supply
• Agency actors, policies and processes to enable
  actions that ensure food security

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• Food Insecurity
• the inability to acquire or consume an adequate
  diet quality or sufficient quantity of food in
  socially acceptable ways, or the uncertainty that
  one will be able to do so.

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• Food insecurity
• Mal-nourishment
• Under-nourishment
• Hunger

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2. Local to global hunger problems

• Hunger
• a recurrent involuntary lack of access to food,
• hunger may produce malnutrition over time.

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• Food shortage - regional
• Food poverty - household level
• Food deprivation - individual level

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Is there a world hunger problem?

• 843 million people were undernourished
• in 2002 (worldwide)
• 11 million in industrialized countries
• 34 million in countries in transition
• 798 million in developing countries

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There is enough food to feed the world

• If the available food was distributed according
  to need, it would be sufficient to feed everyone
  in the world, based on calculations of calories
  per person per day.

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• If there is enough food. what is the problem?

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Global measures

• Millenium Development Goals
• 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• 2. Achieve universal primary education
• 3. Promote gender equality and empower women
• 4. Reduce child mortality
• 5. Improve maternal health
• 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• 7. Ensure environmental sustainability
• 8. Develop a global partnership for development

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Between 1990 and 2015, halve the proportion of
people whose income is less than one dollar a day.
GOAL 1 Target 1

• Indicators1. Proportion of population below 1
  (PPP) per day (World Bank)a2. Poverty gap ratio
  incidence x depth of poverty (World Bank)3.
  Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
  (World Bank)

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Between 1990 and 2015, halve the proportion of
people who suffer from hunger
GOAL 1 Target 2

• Indicators4. Prevalence of underweight children
  under five years of age (UNICEF-WHO)5.
  Proportion of population below minimum level of
  dietary energy consumption (FAO)

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So, what is happening?

• To reach the World Food Summit goal of reducing
  hunger by half by 2015, the number of hungry
  people needs to fall by 22 million a year.
• Currently it is only falling by about 6 million a
  year (best estimates).

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Trends

• Between 1992 and 2001, there were 19 million less
  chronically hungry people in developing
  countries.
• The number of undernourished actually increased
  by 18 million from 1997 to 2001
• Increase in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the Near
  East and North Africa
• Reduction in Asia and the Pacific and in Latin
  America and the Caribbean

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Progress and setbacks in large countries

• China
• reduced the number of hungry people by 58 million
  since 1992, but progress has slowed since the
  prevalence of undernourishment has been reduced.
• India
• 1992 1997 reduced the number of
  undernourished persons by 20 million
• 1998 2002 increase of 19 million
  undernourished persons

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3. Why does hunger persist these days?

• ROOT CAUSES
• Economic policies
• Trade rules, and
• Market power
• CONSEQUENCE
• Food gets treated as a profitable commodity
  rather than as a right.

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Structural Adjustment Programs

• liberalization of the economy and resource
  extraction/export-oriented open markets
• role of the state is minimized (cutbacks in
  health and education)
• privatization, reduced protection of domestic
  industries
• Reduction of regulations and standards in order
  to attract foreign investors

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Weve all heard the following myths
theres not enough food to go around
nature is to blame for famine
there are just too many people to feed
feeding that many would cause an environmental
crisis
the green revolution is the answer
(biotechnology)
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and also that
the North benefits from the South
free-market, free trade is the answer the poor
are too hungry to fight for their own
rights ..the poor lack the knowledge to solve
their problems (illiterate incapable) more
aid will help these countries
These are MYTHS and SIMPLIFICATIONS
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Information

• Oxfam-Canada www.oxfam.ca
• United Nations www.un.org
• Food Aid Organization www.fao.org
• Global Issues www.globalissues.org