14.1.4: Why Are People Starving?

14.1.4: Why Are People Starving? 

Pictures of starving children gnaw at our conscience. We live in such abundance, while children and their parents starve before our very eyes. Why don’t they have enough food? Is it because there isn’t enough food in the world to feed them or because the abundant food the world produces does not reach them? 458 The Anti-Malthusians make a point that seems irrefutable. As Figure 14.4 shows, there is much more food for each person in the world now than there was in 1950. Despite the billions of additional people who now live on this planet, improved seeds and fertilizers have made more food available for each person on Earth. With the breakthroughs that bioengineers are making in agriculture, even more food is on the way. Figure 14.4 How Much Food Does the World Produce per Person?

NOTE: 2004–2006 equals 100. Projections by the author.​ SOURCES: Based on Simon 1981; Statistical Abstract of the United States 2010:Table 1335, 2019:Table 1391; UN FAO 2019.

 The vertical axis represents “Per capita food production” ranging from 0 to 120 in increments of 10, while the horizontal axis represents “Year” ranging from 1950 to 2020 in increments of 5. The curve begins at 64, in the year 1950, which is shown to increase till 112 in the year 2015. Further, the curve is represented through a dotted line, increasing till 115, in the year 2020. Note: All data is approximate. 2004 to 2006 equals 100. Projections by the author. 459 If the Earth is so productive, why do people die of hunger? From Figure 14.4, which you just viewed, we can conclude that people don’t starve because the Earth produces too little food, but because particular places lack food. Droughts and wars are the main reasons. Just as droughts slow or stop food production, so does war. In nations ravaged by civil war, opposing sides confiscate and burn crops, and farmers flee to the cities (Bariyo 2017; Mednick 2018). The New Malthusians counter with the argument that the world’s population is still growing and that we don’t know how long Earth will continue to produce enough food. They add that the recent policy of turning food (such as corn and sugar cane) into biofuels (such as gasoline and diesel) poses a threat to the world’s food supply. A bushel of corn that goes into someone’s gas tank is a bushel of corn that does not go on people’s dinner plates. Both the New Malthusians and the Anti-Malthusians have contributed significant ideas, but theories will not eliminate famines. Starving children are going to continue to peer out at us from our televisions and magazines, their tiny, shriveled bodies and bloated stomachs nagging at our consciences, imploring us to do something. Regardless of the underlying causes of this human misery, the solution is twofold: first, to transfer food from nations that have a surplus to those that have a shortage, and second, to teach more efficient farming techniques. The pictures of starving Africans leave the impression that Africa is overpopulated. Why else would all those people be starving? The truth, however, is far different. There are 37 people per square kilometer in Africa, only slightly more than the 33 people per square kilometer in the United States. At 136 people per square kilometer, Asia’s population is three-and-a-half times as concentrated as Africa’s, and people there are not starving (Kaneda et al. 2019). Africa even has vast areas of fertile land that have not yet been farmed. The reason for famines in Africa, then, cannot be too many people living on too little land. Gallery Famine and Feast

Photos of starving children, such as this child in South Sudan, haunt Americans and other members of the Most Industrialized Nations. Many of us wonder why, when some are starving, we should live in the midst of such abundance, often overeating and even casually scraping excess food into the garbage. As in this photo from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we even have eating contests to see which “competitive eater” can eat the most food in the least amount of time. Credits: Jenny Matthews/Alamy Stock Photo; Daniel Zuchnik/FilmMagic/Getty Images Watch 

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