Food Scarcity
Food Scarcity As the world's human population grows, more food is needed to feed the hungry. Unfortunately, there is not always enough to go around. This is a complex issue impacted by many factors, some of which will be addressed below.
See also food production and consumption and Urban Agriculture. See also Third World Development (and its associated topics, including Africa). Genetically Modified Organisms as well as Population. Food Safety and health as well as Global Warming. For labor issues, see Labor page.
More than 862 million people in the world go hungry.
In developing countries nearly 16 million children die every year from preventable and treatable causes. Sixty percent of these deaths are from hunger and malnutrition.
In the United States, 11.7 million children live in households where people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. That means one in ten households in the U.S. are living with hunger or are at risk of hunger.
Articles/Reports
Are snails the answer to hunger? 10/12
Omaha teenager starts a program to donate ungrateful kids’ fruit to the hungry
AmpleHarvest connects home gardeners to hungry people.
Don’t toss your cookies: Curbing the crisis of food waste 8/12.
In February, the UN’s food price index rose for the eighth consecutive month, to the highest level since at least 1990. As a result, since 2010 began, roughly another 44 million people have quietly crossed the threshold into malnutrition, joining 925 million already suffering from lack of food. If prices continue to rise, this food crisis will push the ranks of the hungry toward a billion people, with another two billion suffering from “hidden malnutrition” from inadequate diets, nearly all in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. That deprivation will shorten lives and stunt young minds, hitting the most vulnerable populations, such as the urban poor of food importing countries, in cities like Cairo, Tunis and Dhaka. “Diet Hard: With A Vengeance,” David Moberg, In These Times, 3/24/11.
Land grab by China and multinational corporations such as Monsanto and private equity funds (sometimes as tax dodge) may be the largest threat to food security. "Inefficient" small subsistence farmers (mostly women) become refugees and miners. Extensive research by Oakland Institute. 6/12
The Hunger Wars in Our Future: Heat, Drought, Rising Food Costs, and Global Unrest 8/12
Food for 9 Billion from Center for Investigative Research.
Link to Nature article on climate change drought affect on food supply. 5/12
Is Walmart the Answer to "Food Deserts"? 1/12.
Preparing for drought in Sahel, Africa 3/12
Speculators drive price spikes 3/12.
Food vs. Fuel: Diversion of Crops Could Cause More Hunger by David J. Tenenbaum. Another take on the subject (pdf 2007).
New York Times correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman received a George Polk Award for his coverage of East Africa including Darfur, Congo, and Somalia. He makes the point that famines never happen simply because of drought; there's always another human factor such as war or inequality (Audio interview, some a bit disturbing) 4/12.
Video
Food and Climate change 2008 panel discussion. CA 2012 Heat and Harvest (audio panel discussion)
TEDtalk video by Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Program, who talks about why, in a world with enough food for everyone, people still go hungry, still die of starvation, still use food as a weapon of war.
Louise Fresco shows us why we should celebrate mass-produced, supermarket-style white bread. She says environmentally sound mass production will feed the world, yet leave a role for small bakeries and traditional methods. TEDtalk video.
Food Stamped2010 documentary in which a couple with kids live on a food stamp budget for a week.
Food Fight! The Battle to Bring Healthy Food to the State's Poorest. Nov 4 2011 Commonwealth Club panel.
The Authors@Google program welcomed the Wall St Journal's Scott Kilman and Roger Thurow to Google's New York office to discuss their book, "Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty" Link.
Global 3000 has extensive coverage of globalization issues. For example, Agricultural Land for Investors - Why Sudan's small farmers are being displaced. It's widely predicted that, by 2050, the population of the world will reach 9 billion and the need for food will increase by 70 percent. Also, Brazil has become the world's biggest exporter of beef. The government and farmers want to double production in the next 10 years.
The New Food Wars: Globalization GMOs and Biofuels. Across the world, food riots are taking place. Scientist and activist Vandana Shiva explores whether the future will be one of food wars or food peace. She argues that the creation of food peace demands a major shift in the way food is produced and distributed, and the way in which we manage and use the soil, water and biodiversity, which makes food production possible. UCI 2008.
Audio
Global food crisis studied by Raj Patelin Stuffed and Starved (recent local talk). See also books and video.
Food Deserts: A Mirage or Reality? 5/12
Books
Alan Bjerga's Endless Appetites: How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest got glowing reviews from both Press Secretary Sara Sciammacco and Senior Communications and Policy Advisor Don Carr.
Oran Hesterman's Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System For All.
Thomas Keneally, author of Three Famines: Starvation and Politics, about the modern history of famines. author interview 10/11.
All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America? by Joel Berg Seven Stories, 351 pp.
Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities by Carlo Petrini, with a foreword by Alice Waters Chelsea Green, 155 pp.
The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society by Janet A. Flammang University of Illinois Press, 325 pp. NY Review of Books 6/10/10
In his new book, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, Earth Policy Institute's Lester Brown looks at the state of the world's resources ( a "food bubble"), warning that the outlook does not look good when it comes to feeding the world's population.
The Food Wars by Walden Bello traces the evolution of the crisis, examining its eruption in Mexico, Africa, the Philippines and China, speaking out against the obscene imbalance in the most basic commodities between northern and southern hemispheres.
Global food crisis studied by Raj Patelin Stuffed and Starved video interview and discussed in videos. Colbert Report. See also Extensive talk (video) based on book. 6/12 update audio. He works with Food First. 2010 Panel with Anna Lappe (video) His newer book The Value of Nothing also has extensive info on food. Video talk for example, the real cost of a hamburger.
Review of book The End of Food
American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do about It) by Jonathan Bloom.
Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply by Vandana Shiva McH Stacks HD9000.5 .S454 2000 Links
A historical view can be found in Late Victorian Holocausts (searchable) By Mike Davis, see also his modern take City of Slums.
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R Montgomery (book trailer) professor of geomorphology, University of Washington discusses the problem of global soil degradation and soil erosion and why it is one of the most significant environmental crises that face our species and planet for the next 400 years to come. another talk. Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery. Dirt, soil, call it what you want—it's everywhere we go. It is the root of our existence, supporting our feet, our farms, our cities. This fascinating yet disquieting book finds, however, that we are running out of dirt, and it's no laughing matter. An engaging natural and cultural history of soil that sweeps from ancient civilizations to modern times, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations explores the compelling idea that we are—and have long been—using up Earth's soil. Once bare of protective vegetation and exposed to wind and rain, cultivated soils erode bit by bit, slowly enough to be ignored in a single lifetime but fast enough over centuries to limit the lifespan of civilizations. A rich mix of history, archaeology and geology, Dirt traces the role of soil use and abuse in the history of Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, China, European colonialism, Central America, and the American push westward. We see how soil has shaped us and we have shaped soil—as society after society has risen, prospered, and plowed through a natural endowment of fertile dirt. David R. Montgomery sees in the recent rise of organic and no-till farming the hope for a new agricultural revolution that might help us avoid the fate of previous civilizations. UC Press
Websites
The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is the leading national organization working to improve public policy to eradicate hunger and under-nutrition in the United States. FRAC engages in research, analysis, training, technical assistance, advocacy, and public education to improve public nutrition programs and broaden their reach.
Food First is concerned with equity. Here's their overview on Food First overview migrant labor.
Local Food Systems, promoting strong local economies by building business ecosystems rooted in agriculture.
Roots of Change works for sustainable food systems.
Community Food Security represents a comprehensive strategy to address many of the ills affecting our society and environment due to an unsustainable and unjust food system.
The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) did a report asking "How can we reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development through the generation, access to, and use of agricultural knowledge, science and technology?" Hunger in California
Ironically/tragically, today in US kids of migrant laborers are going hungry (audio). (December 10, 2009) Nearly a million migrant children crisscross the U.S. with their families, from harvest to harvest and from job to job. In North Carolina, migrant families struggle to find work, and many rely on schools for food and clothing. The people who run the state's migrant program say living conditions and financial hardships for laborers are the worst in memory.
More info from Bread for the World.org
A Seat at the Table is a game/simulation from Oxfam.
We can feed 10 billion, but we have to change. 10/11
Maps/Infographics
A tool that maps and grades "food deserts" to lure supermarkets. USDA version.
Food Insecurity (hunger) in US by state/county.
World food map from CIR.
Big Bad Corn infographic.
Videos
See Food section on Environmental Films page.
UCB Edible Education: Feeding the World had a great lineup, including Raj Patel, Marion Nestle, health effects, Slow Food 2011.
TEDtalks TEDtalks on food are great. a sample.
Ellen Gustafson says hunger and obesity are two sides of the same coin. At TED, she launches The 30 Project -- a way to change how we farm and eat in the next 30 years, and solve the global food inequalities behind both epidemics.
Frances Moore-Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, talk entitled Eco-Mind. 9/11
Global 3000 has extensive coverage of globalization issues, including food issues. For example, Agricultural Land for Investors - Why Sudan's small farmers are being displaced. It's widely predicted that, by 2050, the population of the world will reach 9 billion and the need for food will increase by 70 percent. Also, Brazil has become the world's biggest exporter of beef. The government and farmers want to double production in the next 10 years.
Why Not Eat Insects? Marcel Dicke wants us to reconsider our relationship with insects, promoting bugs as a tasty -- and ecologically sound -- alternative to meat in an increasingly hungry world. TEDtalk video.
The Global Banquet exposes globalization’s profoundly damaging effect on our food system in terms that are understandable to the non-specialist. It debunks several underlying myths about global hunger.
Cuba: The Accidental Revolution are two one-hour documentaries celebrating the country's success in providing for itself in the face of a massive economic crisis, and how its latest revolutions, an agricultural revolution and a revolution in science and medicine are having repercussions around the world. Canadian TV Trailer.
"Up in Smoke," a documentary on the use of slash and burn agriculture in Central America. 6/11
Micha Peled’s documentary Bitter Seeds the final film in Peled’s “globalization trilogy,” exposes the havoc Monsanto has wreaked on rural farming communities in India, and serves as a fierce rebuttal to the claim that genetically modified seeds can save the developing world.
"The Garden" trailer (director Scott Hamilton Kennedy, the Academy Award winning documentary). The Garden is the unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer who wants to evict them and build warehousesinterview/excerpts
The varieties of wheat, corn and rice we grow today may not thrive in a future threatened by climate change. Cary Fowler takes us inside a vast global seed bank, buried within a frozen mountain in Norway, that stores a diverse group of food-crop for whatever tomorrow may bring. TEDtalk.
The Future of Food c2004 Film & Music DVD2936
(88 min.) In-depth investigation into unlabeled genetically-modified foods which have become increasingly prevalent in grocery stores. Unravels the complex web of market and political forces that are changing the nature of what we eat. Interview with maker The followup is Symphony of the Soil
Controlling Our Food documentary was aired on French television - a documentary that Americans won’t ever see. The gigantic bio-tech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.
The Monsanto Story Monsanto from their early days to 1994. Subjects covered include: Agent Orange, PCBs, DDT, chemical accidents, Rachel Carson, Silent Spring. Note: Part 2 has very disturbing images.
Biochar is helping transform agriculture in India. It's made for the purpose of adding it to soil as fertilizer, and since charcoal is a stable solid rich in carbon content, it can be used to lock carbon in the soil. Global 3000.
Audio
Global food crisis studied by Raj Patelin Stuffed and Starved video interview and discussed in videos. Colbert Report. See also Extensive talk (video) based on book. 6/12 update audio.
How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick. Interview with author of Consumption Kevin Patterson.
Drought Tolerant Rice works with fungus. 7/11 Loe.org
Anna Lappe Author, Diet for a Hot Planet 5/18/11 Founding Principal, Small Planet Institute; Author, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It. With as much as one-third of total greenhouse emissions related to food production, the cost of our eating habits on the environment has never been more apparent. Lappe highlights the hidden cost of America’s culinary culture and outlines seven principles for a climate-friendly diet.recorded Audio.
