In My Hunger Days

USDA pessimistic on hunger outlook

Posted at 3:57 PM on 09 Jul 2008

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture calculated that 849 million people across the globe were "food-insecure" -- consuming less than 2,100 calories a day, or, in a word, hungry. But in its 2006 Food Security Report, the agency took an optimistic view of the situation, suggesting that the number of malnourished would fall to 800 million by 2017. Well, so much for that idea: In the just-released 2007 Food Security Report, the USDA estimates that 982 million people currently go without full bellies, and that that number will leap to 1.2 billion in a decade. The assessment makes the reasonable assumption that grain prices, which jumped 50 percent from 2005 to 2007, will stay high, thanks in large part to the biofuel boom and to increased consumption of grain-fed meat by the growing Asian middle class.

sources: The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Pro Farmer
straight to the report: Food Security Assessment, 2007

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Comments: (11 comments)

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Biofuel and World Hunger

This is such a serious problem; I feel deeply troubled that starvation in the world is growing. While we heat our house with biodiesel made from vegetable oil discarded from restaurants, my understanding is that our source may be supplementing their biodiesel supply with "agrofuel" (made from food grown to be fuel) due to increased demand for biodiesel.
I'm morally opposed to using food-based fuel, and I won't be willing to purchase or use it when it comes time to refill our tank. How are others handling this whole dilemma?
Alison in Portland, OR
http://www.diamondcutlife.org /

by Alison Wiley at 4:50 PM on 09 Jul 2008

Just Making More Food is Not the Solution

And there is no solution in the current paradigm. Primarily, we are consumers. We consume more than we make. Eventually, we will consume the planet. The paradigm relating to our "happiness" and "success" need to change; and change quickly! We, as Americans, have set the standard for happiness and success - it comes from consuming stuff. Now developing countries are getting their ideas of happiness and success from our example.

Our concepts of success were once tied to family and getting a good education for our children. A happy life meant providing for your family, being a good neighbor, and being a good citizen. Somewhere in the 1950's we decided that just providing for our family was not enough; we had to get them all of the newest toys and the biggest houses that we could afford. Now we go well passed our abilities to afford the biggest and newest stuff.

There needs to be a global shift in the happiness paradigm. Else, humans will never be satisfied with what our poor planet can provide. Why expend more natural resources to feed more people, when educating and encouraging people to have fewer children would be so much more reasonable?

Why teach our children to want more and more of the bigger and newer stuff? Teaching them to be satisfied with more environmentally friendly alternatives would make a lot more sense. Teach them to fix up an old bicycle instead of getting the latest version every year. Teach them to play with their friends instead of playing video games with their friends. Teach them that its wrong to hate and steal. And teach them that they can be happy with less stuff. Might be a good lesson for parents, too.

Most times for evil to win it doesn't take a large, horrible event; it just takes a lot of people each doing just a little bad. AOOOOOOooooooooo.........

by Wolfy at 6:36 PM on 09 Jul 2008

poverty is the cause, not the symptom

Why expend more natural resources to feed more people, when educating and encouraging people to have fewer children would be so much more reasonable?

In India, this idea of educating has been tried very ferociously. It didn't work. In China, it has been tried at gunpoint. It worked. But now, the effects are sinking in with a rapidly aging population.

In Japan and Europe, the rapidly aging workforce is unable to earn social security by itself. So the workforce is being augmented by immigrants, this strategy has been going on for years in US and Canada.

There is no easy answers to the population problem. A comprehensive education and employment opportunities, coupled with a strong social safety network will encourage fewer children. This should go along with rapid urbanization, to reduce the ecological imprint of increasing people. In other words, industrialization is necessary for reducing population growth. If you look at the growth statistics, you would soon realize that industrialized countries have close to zero growth.

This is why poverty becomes the root cause of the problem, and not the symptom of over population.

Happiness is not about being greedy consumers. But there are a few basic thresholds which can be easily met all over the world. That will be the first step to happiness.

Nobody can be happy living in extreme poverty. When significant sections of humanity face extreme poverty, not even the rest can find true happiness.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

by vakibs at 4:41 AM on 10 Jul 2008

Here's your SF plotline

Biomass ethanol production becomes commonplace after the scientific and engineering problems are solved. Someone discovers that besides plant waste, animal carcasses will convert to ethanol. That includes human bodies. As over populated countries face mass starvation, the bodies of their dead become a resource to be added to the world's fuel market. The world population stabilizes and then shrinks to a more sustainable level.

Have a nice day.

by catman at 6:16 AM on 10 Jul 2008

G8 leaders solving world hunger in 18 course meal

[W]orld leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis.
The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.

I'd like each G8 leader to sit down at this table after eating nothing for two days or maybe a handful of rice and beans, and THEN figure out how to solve global hunger and poverty.

by Ashley Braun at 9:41 AM on 10 Jul 2008

Stop feeding animals and than eating them.

Yes, I know I have said it before, and I will say it again.

Stop unnaturally and over breeding animals. Stop using the resources (land, water, money, wood, electric power etc...) to have animal meat. Instead use the resources and foods to feed the millions that are hungry! Honestly, its that that complicated. Of course many rich people and people that the USDA, will not like it, but at least millions of young children and their families will not be dying of hunger due to the west (and not Indian and China's) need for dead animal meat.

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 10:25 AM on 10 Jul 2008

Sorry I meant to write "NOW"

Sorry I meant to write "NOW" Indian and China's

I only have this one life, so I am going to try my very best to make a positive change. --- The Happy & Healthy Vegan ---

by javaearth at 10:27 AM on 10 Jul 2008

WVO

Alison,
I am making several assumptions. The first is that you have an oil fired boiler and that you heating system is a hot water or steam heat system.

If you have enough lot space a geothermal ground loop could cut you heating fuel needs. Zoning your rooms so that you can heat individual rooms would also save fuel.

You might try collecting waste vegetable (WVO) directly and burning it in your furnace. This requires a degree of resourcefulness that not everyone possesses. Collecting WVO from restaurant fryers and cleaning it takes requires a commitment and time. I burn WVO in my diesel tractors and in my 1995 GMC 6.5 diesel van. I clean the WVO by allowing it to settle in the containers for several weeks and then I siphon it off leaving the settled food particles in the bottom of the container. I then just dump the oil in my fuel tank and it mixes with diesel already in the tank. I run a blend of no more than 50/50. Diesel at $4.69 a gal makes this a good return on the time that I have invested. Some weeks I drive my produce to market for free. This should work for your furnace. You may want to filter the WVO through a filter that takes out particles down to 5 microns depending on the requirement of the nozzle on your furnaces injection system. A pre -heater in front of your furnace injection system should allow you to run strait WVO if you are lucky enough to source the amount need to heat your home for the season. A good open minded heating service person would also be a plus if you are not familiar with heating systems. Below is a web site with related information on collecting and using WVO.
http://www.plantdrive.com/

Farming organically in Ohio.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi

by sycamore at 9:07 AM on 12 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

Not ethanol, catman, but biodiesel

The idea of harvesting the fat from cadavers was already floated in my first article for Gristmill, back in December 2006.

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 10:11 AM on 12 Jul 2008

The planet is not going to become vegatarian

Even if it did, do you seriously think that would solve the world food problem? The problem is, people continue to breed until either they become affluent enough that they no longer need a lot of children for social security OR they breed beyond the capacity for the environment to sustain them and they die off in large numbers.

The more food produced by the world, the more people breed, then the more food you need.

Eating meat isn't the problem - overpopulation is.

Victory in Pattani

by MAD MAC at 10:04 AM on 13 Jul 2008
[ Parent ]

Animal Husbandry Is A Problem

Mac is half right: eating meat per se is not a problem. However, breeding non-native animals and wasting land for their feed -- instead of just using that land to directly feed people -- is a problem. And overeating meat, which Americans and other rich people do to a large extent. And overpopulated masses eating too many wild animals, such as fish, is a problem.

So if the human population were lowered enough, people stuck to wild meat, and people got their meat eating habits down to a reasonable level, then yes, meat eating would not be a problem. Otherwise, it's a huge problem that's responsible for a lot of ecological destruction, such as the cattle industry's turning the western grasslands in the U.S. into deserts.

by Wolverine at 4:30 PM on 13 Jul 2008

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