One in every nine people in the world go hungry every day. That amounts to 821 million people. But we produce enough food to feed all 7.5 billion people on Earth today.
So what gives?
The food we produce is not equitably distributed across the world’s population. Whether it’s war and conflict, climate change and extreme weather events, the downward spiral of poverty and poor nutrition, bad government and economic policies, or gender inequality, most of the reasons for hunger and famine are the fault of humans.
And the number of people who are hungry has begun increasing again after decades of decline, mostly in Africa, southern Asia and South America.
The form of government alone is strongly associated with famines, shown in the figure below. The latest example is the Assad regime in Syria, whose mishandling of a years-long drought led to their devastating civil war. Famines are almost unknown in democracies.
The UN’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report found that climate variability affecting rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, and climate extremes such as droughts and floods, are among the key drivers behind the rise in hunger, together with conflict and economic recessions.
Increasing climate variability and weather extremes are negatively affecting all dimensions of food security - food availability, access, utilization and stability - as well as reinforcing other underlying causes of malnutrition related to child care and feeding, health services and environmental health.
The number of extreme events, including extreme heat, droughts, floods and storms, has doubled since the early 1990s, with an average of 213 of these events occurring every year during the last 30 years (see figure). These events mostly hit those countries that have the most hungry people.
It is important to note that yields for most staple crops decrease with increasing peak seasonal temperatures.
According to the United Nations, climate-related disasters account for more than 80% of all major internationally reported disasters, and floods, droughts and tropical storms affect food production the most.
Drought causes 80% of the total damage and losses in agriculture, tsunamis and storms account for almost all of the losses to the fisheries subsector, and floods and storms cause most of the economic impact on forestry.
What is bizarre is that countries affected by hunger are dealing with both starvation and obesity at the same time. According to the UN report, "Food insecurity contributes to overweight and obesity, as well as undernutrition. The higher cost of nutritious foods, the stress of living with food insecurity, and physiological adaptations to food restriction help explain why food-insecure families may have a higher risk of obesity."
Separate from trying to address climate change, are strategies attempting to reduce hunger. But it is difficult since agricultural production and food systems are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and are particularly sensitive to climate.
Better agricultural practices need to be a priority for adapting and mitigating climate changes. The challenge is to increase agricultural production in ways that are both more sustainable for enabling healthy diets and more climate-resilient, while at the same time reducing emissions.
Increasing use of climate-adapted crops, whether GMO or not, is essential. As is smart and computer-aided farming practices that conserve water and increase yields. As is increased access to energy and electricity. Global assistance for deploying solar, wind and small modular nuclear will be crucial.
The developed world needs to step up and address this increase in hunger, if only for its own interests. Hunger causes displacement of whole populations, and also causes civil unrest, even war. Refugee migration has increased into stable areas like Europe and America, and cultural responses are getting extreme, and mean.
“To be successful, climate resilience policies and programs should be built around climate risk assessments, science and interdisciplinary cross-sectoral knowledge, and participatory and inclusive blended humanitarian and development approaches driven by the needs of climate-vulnerable groups.”
The United Nations is trying to get the world’s governments to coordinate climate resilience policies. Particularly in enhancing the resilience of the entire food system and providing humanitarian emergency response, risk transfer and forecast-based financing. But lately the world seems to be less inclined to cooperate on anything, especially since the United States has backed off from its historic role as world leader.
As the global population climbs from over 7 billion to over 10 billion in the next 30 years, most of these additional humans will be born in poorer countries. Unless we want billions to succumb to starvation and hunger nearing the end of the century, we need to address this issue now.
