Causes of Hunger Related to the Causes of Poverty
Most people live on just a few dollars a day. Whether you live in the wealthiest nations in the world or the poorest, you will see high levels of inequality. In a world of plenty, a huge number go hungry. Hunger is more than just the result of food production and meeting demands. The causes of hunger are related to the causes of poverty. One of the major causes of hunger is poverty itself. The Food and Agriculture Organization maintains that the world’s agriculture produces enough food to provide every person with at least 2,720 kilocalories every day for the world’s population (Eitzen, Zinn, Smith, 2011 pg.68).
Problems of hunger, malnutrition and disease affect the poorest in society. Even though the world’s agriculture produces plenty of food, the food production is unevenly distributed, resulting in about 1 billion being malnourished which is 1 in six people, about one in every three of the world’s inhabitants being food insecure, and around 9 million people dying of malnutrition each year (Eitzen, Zinn, Smith, 2011 pg.68). The poorest are also typically disregarded from society and have little representation or opinion in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty. Food supplies are adequate, but people must have the resources to afford them. Because the poor cannot afford the available food, they go hungry. This is where the relationship between poverty and food production link together. Political and economic conditions that keep prices too high, make jobs difficult to obtain and poorly paid, and force too many people to compete for too few resources. The major problem with food shortages is not food production, although that’s exceedingly important, but the political economy of the world and of the individual nations. There are many inter-related issues causing hunger, which are related to economics and other factors that cause poverty. They include land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to
Problems of hunger, malnutrition and disease affect the poorest in society. Even though the world’s agriculture produces plenty of food, the food production is unevenly distributed, resulting in about 1 billion being malnourished which is 1 in six people, about one in every three of the world’s inhabitants being food insecure, and around 9 million people dying of malnutrition each year (Eitzen, Zinn, Smith, 2011 pg.68). The poorest are also typically disregarded from society and have little representation or opinion in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty. Food supplies are adequate, but people must have the resources to afford them. Because the poor cannot afford the available food, they go hungry. This is where the relationship between poverty and food production link together. Political and economic conditions that keep prices too high, make jobs difficult to obtain and poorly paid, and force too many people to compete for too few resources. The major problem with food shortages is not food production, although that’s exceedingly important, but the political economy of the world and of the individual nations. There are many inter-related issues causing hunger, which are related to economics and other factors that cause poverty. They include land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to