On or around October 31, 2011, the global population is predicted to reach 7 billion. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations – there are over 1 billion people in the world today who do not get enough food to eat. That’s one in 7 people on Earth don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
Hunger in the 21st century means the same thing it has always meant: not getting enough food to be healthy and lead an active life.
How much of the world lives in energy poverty?
Where are these people? We in the developing world rarely see people who are hungry, although the FAO and other sources say hunger also exists in developed countries like the United States.
Most of the world’s hungry people live in developing nations. In absolute terms, Asia and the Pacific have the largest numbers of hungry people. In terms of percentages, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence of hungry, with more than one in three people being undernourished, according to the FAO.
The FAO says that the world currently produces enough food for everybody. Overall, around the world in recent decades, a green revolution has taken place. It has allowed Earth’s food supply to keep pace with our world’s growing population, for the most part. So why are there still hungry people? According to the FAO, lack of access to food is the problem. High domestic food prices, lower incomes and, in 2011, increasing unemployment due to the global economic situation means many people cannot afford to buy the food they need.
Hunger experts use the terms “food secure” or “food insecure” to speak of hungry people, and nations with many who are hungry. These experts agree that poverty is a root cause of food insecurity. Food insecure nations tends to have large numbers of very poor people. Natural disasters, war and other conflicts, poor agricultural infrastructure and over-exploitation of the environment also play a role.
Meanwhile, a food secure country can produce, store or import the food it needs and distribute it equitably. The FAO lists four key factors for achieving food security in a given country:
1. There must be enough food to ensure that each person’s daily energy and nutrient needs can be met.
2. Even in a country with adequate food supplies, people must have access to that food.
3. The food supply must be stable. Factors causing instability of food supplies include droughts, floods, sharp price increases or seasonal unemployment.
4. Cultural acceptability – use of certain foods, food combinations or handling methods can be preempted by religious or cultural taboos.
More from the FAO: How can hunger be reduced?
Read about hunger in the world today from the FAO’s 2009 publication The State of Food Insecurity in the World.
The FAO has a new website about hunger.
There’s also a huge repository of documents about the issue of global food and global hunger here.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the chart at least shows that “2009 was a devastating year for the world’s hungry, marking a significant worsening of an already disappointing trend in global food security since 1996. The global economic slowdown, following on the heels of the food crisis in 2006–08, has deprived an additional 100 million people of access to adequate food. There have been marked increases in hunger in all of the worlds major regions, and more than one billion people are now estimated to be undernourished.”
Joel Cohen: Top 10 population trends on Earth with 7 billion
Two-pronged path to sustainable world with 7 billion+ humans
EarthSky award for excellence in population reporting in the year of 7 billion
This is a damn shame! I’ve heard people tell me that the Free Market system is the best and most moral system around. I beg to differ. I’m not a socialist or a communist but capitalism is not the lesser of the 2 evils. There is enough food to go around but not enough money. Countries for example like Africa are enslaved by the World Bank for loans owed because of a World War II debt. Corporations from all over the world have control of that countries resources. We intentionally keep these people down in order to keep our life styles intact.
We can easily feed the poor if we apply advanced technology and just get rid of the monetary system in general. The Venus Project has a system called a Resource Based Economy. If mankind would apply this direction we all good be living better. We must put an end to this me first, profit driven, competition based, corrupted system.
http://www.thevenusproject.com
The Solution to the 2 billion hungry people that do not have enough to eat food is a big WAR. It will reduce the population to a sustainable level where we will all have plent of everything. I guess some will still have more of the desirable things.
i’d like to second Blueberrysky’s comment.
Its a horrifying failure of humanity that today, in 21st century where we are capable of producing enough food for everyone, yet there are 1 in 7 people uncertain of their next meal.
People often do not want to think about these things, because they fear change, fear opening their resources and perhaps changing their monetary values. Free market capitalism may have worked couple of hundred years ago, but its high time we seek a better system to operate this global human society. The venus project comes to my mind.
http://www.thevenusproject.com
Todays condition is very bad. we never know where we going.
Its time to think………. we are going on way of progress?
When President Bush increased farm subsidies in the United States farmers cheered. But at the same time they were outlawing government subsidies for farmers in developing countries. This made it impossible for these farmers to compete. As a result millions of people died of hunger in Africa. Read about it in “Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty” by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. I got my copy for less than $5, delivered, used, from Amazon.
http://www.countercurrents.org/salmony301011.htm
More food to more people = more reproduction (more births). At some point there has to be some kind of global family planning, but unfortunately that will never happen due to cultural traditions, beliefs, etc. So we will have to do it the “old fashioned way”…..by famine and war and suffering.
[...] How many hungry in a world with 7 billion? | Food | EarthSkyOct 30, 2011 There are a billion people in the world today who do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an [...]
[...] This happens in our house, too. This year, we’re trying our damnedest to stop throwing our meals away. Food waste is a huge drain on natural resources and a total kick in the face to the 1.02 billion people on Earth who are undernourished. [...]
We all need to Pray harder. Next, there are so many con artist in the world many people are scared to do the right thing. I thought this was a Mother Teresa Quote ,If you can not feed many feed one. I keep asking God to allow me to win the lottery because that is on my top ten thing where i would give. The sick , the hungry and homeless.I agree it’s a shame There are so many that do not have a clue how blessed they are. These problems the world has is also Gods way for his people to do his will ” Love they neighbor as thyself. We are called to to be compassionate to some one in need. That is why God sent Jesus the prince of peace. Not just for sins and salvation , to show man the right way to live peacefully. My prayer is for the world to quite be greedy and love one another. FOOD IS LOVE ! Spread it.