Fighting hunger

October 16 is marked internationally as the day the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was founded 73 years ago. In the past three years, the efforts of the FAO have focused more on the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end world hunger, a quest whose prospects remain grim. As of 2017, over 150 million children remain stunted, and approximately 820 million people worldwide suffer from malnourishment. While the FAO’s attempts to highlight these issues remain laudable, deeper reflection is warranted on its approaches which remain heavily focused on technological advancement in agriculture to increase yields. This myopic view overlooks the intersection of hunger with conflict, despite the worrying reports of starvation among war-torn populations in regions such as Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan. As economist Amartya Sen’s celebrated work demonstrated long ago, famines have rarely resulted from a lack of food. The problem usually lies with the processes that govern food distribution.

An emphasis on distribution rather than production would also explain the inequalities within societies that are not in a state of war, as malnourishment and starvation affect disadvantaged populations even in countries that may enjoy a surplus in agricultural production. The FAO must also contend with the issue of environmental degradation and the fight against climate change. Research has revealed that current agricultural practices that include the utilisation of water, genetically modified seeds and patterns of land usage do not constitute sustainable farming practices, calling for a dramatic overhaul of existing agricultural models. The challenge of climate change makes this even more important. Another question that seems to be relegated to the sidelines is that of land reform. One of the most inexplicable facts that we live with today is rural hunger. The very farmers that feed the world are the ones that go hungry the most. On World Food Day, we cannot forget the need for redistributive justice for the many rural workers and landless farmers, who are barely able to feed themselves despite decades spent with such policies on the agenda. Today, it is important to realise that the problem of world hunger thus needs to be viewed in connection with the overlapping issues of political conflict, environmental protection and distributive policy. Only then can we begin our journey towards zero hunger.