NPTEL – Humanities and Social Sciences – Indian Society : Issues and Problems
Module 2 Illiteracy,
Poverty,
Unemployment
and
Population Growth
Lecture 9
Myths about Hunger
The conceptual origins of "Myths about Hunger" are found in a publication provided
by FOOD FIRST in an article entitled "Hunger Is Not a Myth, But Myths Keep Us
From Ending Hunger." Food First reminds us that between 400 million and a billion
people do not get enough to eat. Of those, twenty million will die. Most of those who
die are children.
Increased food production, advanced agricultural techniques, and billions of dollars in
foreign aid are not solving the problem of hunger. Part of the explanation is that
foreign aid is inevitably tied to existing "structures of misery" (Michael Harrington,
1984). By becoming aware of the misconceptions associated with hunger, it is hoped
that as a world community we can come closer to addressing the true dynamics of
hunger.
MYTH #1:
Scarcity – People are hungry because there is not enough food
Enough grain is grown worldwide to provide every man, woman, and child with 3500
calories per day, which is what the average North American consumes. Enough food
is grown in worldwide to provide everyone with an adequate diet.
The one common denominator in every country where hunger is prevalent is that a
few powerful people wield an ever tightening control over food production,
distribution, and other economic resources. A United Nations study found that in
eighty-three countries worldwide, 3 percent of the population controls more than 80
percent of food production. Redistributing control of food production would help to
eliminate hunger.
MYTH #2:
Overpopulation – Hunger exists where there are too many people
to feed
Population density by itself does not directly correspond to the prevalence of hunger.
Food First notes that Bolivia has six times as much land under cultivation (per person)
as China while 45 percent of Bolivia's people are hungry. China, on the other hand,
has eliminated widespread hunger.
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There are obvious long term problems associated with rapid population growth, but
rapid population growth is not in its self a cause of hunger. Rapid population growth
is a symptom of poverty. Families who live in poverty give birth to several children
to:
Ensure the survival of some children because infant mortality rates are high.
and because poor families depend on children to gather resources.
Overpopulation will cease to be a problem when poverty is no longer a problem.
MYTH #3:
Increased Production – The solution to hunger is to use improved
technology to produce more food. Foreign aid facilitates this process.
Often efforts to increase food production have ended up increasing the prevalence of
hunger. Often increased production is financed by First-World countries. Foreign
assistance provided by the United States government is often distributed by AID
(Agency for International Development). Food produced via First-World financing is
often exported back to the core leaving the local population more hungry than before
the aid arrived in their country.
Although fifty percent of AID's budget goes for agriculture, rural development, and
nutrition, AID does not do much to alleviate hunger and malnutrition. AID's
concentration in agriculture is designed to increase agricultural production in crops
destined for the U.S. and to increase consumption of U.S. technology and farm
products like fertilizer and pesticides. While local farmers grow, process, and package
fresh vegetables for export to more affluent countries that can afford the exports, local
hunger and poverty persist and actually increases (Barry et al., 1983:91). Although the
aggregate economy of the local government expands, the daily lives of individuals
become more desperate. This is a sad contradiction in U.S. policy toward Central
America.
Foreign investment distorts the local economy in the following ways.
A.
Further Concentration of Wealth:
Foreign aid causes a further concentration of wealth in poor countries. Farmers who
can benefit from increased production use their profits to buy out poorer farmers or
they invest their profits in other sectors of the economy. Land, therefore, is further
concentrated in the hands of fewer people.
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NPTEL – Humanities and Social Sciences – Indian Society : Issues and Problems
B.
Problems Associated with Advanced Technology:
High technology itself is a problem because machinery replaces human labor, thereby
creating more unemployment and more poverty.
C.
Inflation:
The influx of large amounts of money creates other economic problems, such as
inflation, thereby further exacerbating the existence of those who have to live at a
subsistence level. Inflation occurs when foreign money is used to buy farm
implements. When extra money is available to purchase certain items, the price of
those items invariably goes up. Money that may originally be intended to improve the
immediate conditions of the poor may create a situation where locals can no longer
afford to buy necessary items.
MYTH #4:
Foreign Assistance is designed to Alleviate Hunger
Of course, the assumption that foreign assistance is designed to help the poor, the
hungry, and the dispossessed is itself a myth. If the sole reason for foreign aid were to
improve the conditions of people living in developing countries, the goal should have
already been met in Central America. In 1982 alone, El Salvador received enough aid
to triple the per capita income of its one million poorest people (Barry et al., 1983:
243).
The main purpose of foreign aid has never been to help the world's starving masses or
to encourage the economic development of the Third-World in a manner that benefits
the majority of people who live there. Foreign aid is "an instrument of American
national security policy" (Nathan and Oliver, 1985:250). Foreign aid seeks markets
for U.S. investment and seeks to short circuit attempts to nationalize U.S. interests.
U.S. foreign aid also attempts to arrange treaties so that U.S. interests are further
promoted (Barry et al., 1983:83).
While speaking before the House Subcommittee of Foreign Operations, Clarence
Long sarcastically characterized U.S. foreign aid as a process that takes "money from
the poor in rich nations and gives it to the rich in poor nations" (Barry et al.,
1983:111).
Often, U.S. foreign aid has decisively anti-humanitarian consequences. As FirstWorld demand for agricultural exports increase, the value of Third-World farm land
also increases.
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MYTH #5:
Land Redistribution – Redistributing control over resources would
mean even less food production for the hungry because such redistribution
would decrease the efficiency of food production.
Three aspects of centralized ownership act to produce more hunger.
A.
Centralization Discourages Food Production
Anti-democratic systems of land tenure often leave large tracts of land unused. Food
First cites Brazil as an example where most Brazilian land is in the hands of a few
owners. In Brazil, only about 15 percent of arable land is under cultivation.
B.
Land Redistribution Encourages Production
Large scale producers grow less food per acre than do small scale producers. To
survive, small scale producers have to cultivate every available acre. Large scale
producers, on the other hand, can profit by keeping acreage out of production. Large
scale enterprises have significant impact on local economies because they tend to
control most of a given commodity. By drying up supplies in specific commodities,
the monopolies can cause the price per unit of specific commodities to rise.
When land ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few, returns from production
are seldom invested in making agriculture more productive. Instead, profits are
invested in other areas of the economy that can make even more profits for the
landowners and further concentrate power and resources.
MYTH #6:
Rich vs. Poor – Providing assistance to hungry people in poor
countries is a threat to high standards of living enjoyed by those in rich countries
The terms "rich country" and "poor country" are not very meaningful when it comes
to describing hunger because all countries have hungry people. Furthermore, hunger
is not a Third-World issue. The United States has more than twenty million people
who are considered hungry while more than two billion pounds of government surplus
food sit in storage (Food First).
Similar economic conditions are in operation to cause hunger in all countries of the
world. In the U.S., and Third World countries, small and mid-size farmers are being
squeezed out of business because they are unable to compete with corporate farms.
More and more, the economy is a world-economy. Forces that affect poor people in
the U.S. are the same ones that affect people in Nicaragua or Southern Africa. When
mega-corporations move to Mexico to take advantage of "cheap" labor, poor
Mexicans are exploited and Americans lose jobs. The poor in foreign lands are not
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our enemy. They should be our allies in a common effort to achieve secure and
satisfying lives. As corporations operate ever more on the world level, labor
organizations as well must encourage worker-unity on a world level.
MYTH #7:
Goodwill – Everyone wants to end hunger
Corporations can benefit from hunger. Keeping land idle can create huge profits.
When supplies of a particular commodity are scarce, demand and, therefore, prices
rise. While land lies idle, those who are already poor are pushed further into poverty.
High levels of poverty and unemployment are good for profits. When many people
are desperate for work, none can demand decent wages.
Governments of countries that have many poor people also benefit from hunger. In
some poor countries in Africa, the government can pay as little as 20 percent of the
market price for crops.
References
Barry, Tom and Beth Wood, Deb Preusch, James Petras
1983 Dollars and Dictators: A Guide to Central America. New York: Grove Press.
Food First
"Hunger Is Not a Myth, But Myths Keep Us From Ending Hunger." Food First
Harrington, Michael
1984 The New American Poverty. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Hunger Action Forum
Hunger Action Forum, July 1988:1
LaFeber, Walter
1984 Inevitable Revolutions: The United States and Central America. New York: W.
W. Norton.
Questions
1. Discuss various myths about hunger in the world.
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