What is Really Causing World Hunger?

In this week's reading, The Scarcity Fallacy, by Stephen J. Scanlan, J. Craig Jenkins, and Lindsey Peterson, the true causes of world hunger are discussed. While scarcity, resulting from "natural disasters, population pressure, and shortfalls in food production" is widely believed to be the problem surrounding hunger, this is not the case. In fact, even though world hunger rates have increased in the last decade, the amount of food on a per capita basis is at its highest mark in the history of mankind. Therefore, "food security" and "food poverty" are the real causes of world hunger, rather than scarcity. Since the problem is not scarcity, the problem arises of how to distribute our food more equitably in order to prevent excess in developed nations at the expense of a shortage in developing countries. The New York Times headline stating, "India's Poor Starve as Wheat Rots", exemplifies the problem with food distribution rather than the sheer amount of food produced. There is excess food, but it is not reaching the people who need it. This occurs for a variety of reasons, mainly the fact that people cannot afford food. The countries where both poverty and hunger rates are lowest, called low-income food deficit countries (LIFDCs), are net importers as they cannot produce enough to meet their own needs. Thus, the high rates in the international marketplace are preventing these nations from receiving an adequate amount of food. Other aspects of society, such as gender and ethnic inequality, and corruption in the food chain have led to the increase in the world hunger rate and in order to prevent this problem from being exacerbated, nations must attack these issues rather than focus on increasing production.

I believe the points made in this article are convincing and it is interesting to note that the amount of food per person is higher than its ever been before, yet we cannot develop a system in which people are not starving. This problem goes beyond the international marketplace and is deeply engrained in society. There is an inequity in society between developed nations and third-world countries that may never be resolved. I believe governments do realize the true issues causing world poverty and hunger, but know a quick fix is impossible. Richer nations will live with surplus, consuming more than they need and leaving leftovers to waste, while others starve and this is how it will be until these developing nations become technologically sound. Specifically, the people in Sub-Saharan Africa have not seen improvements in their standard of living, although there have been many efforts to aid the area. Unfortunately, the story of human history always involves the suffering of many at the expense of the few who live surrounded by wealth.


Is there a remedy to the problem of worldwide poverty or will the distribution channels never be fixed in order to make the allocation of food more equitable?
How can developing nations "catch up" in order to escape their impoverished lives?