As
the leaders of the world posture and sermonize for the United Nations General
Assembly this week, a growing global specter should spur common concern among
them: World hunger, after a decade-long decline, spiked last year, because of
scourges like global warming and civil conflicts that show little sign of
abating.
The
number of undernourished human beings on the planet increased from 777 million
in 2015 to 815 million in 2016, the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization estimated, in a report timed for the world leaders’ annual review
of their hopes and fears for the planet. That means 11 percent of the world’s
population went hungry every day — a 5 percent increase in two years and a
severe setback for the United Nations’ goal of eliminating global hunger by
2030.
The
human suffering underlying the data includes almost one in four children under
5 years of age — 155 million — with stunted growth and a greatly heightened
risk of cognitive damage and susceptibility to infection. Another 52 million
children are considered “wasting” — weighing too little for their height, for
lack of food.
The
report didn’t specify precise factors that drove the decade of success in
diminishing world hunger. But it stressed rising civil strife and climate
disruption in explaining the sudden downturn. “There
is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone, yet 815
million people go hungry,” the United Nations food agency summarized
plaintively.
At
the same time, obesity continues to rise for adults all over the world, with a
significant increase lately among children in most regions. “Multiple forms of
malnutrition therefore coexist, with countries experiencing simultaneously high
rates of child undernutrition and adult obesity,” the report warned.
A
stark measure of the complicated problems is that a vast majority of those
going hungry — 489 million of the 815 million “food insecure” and malnourished
— are fighting for survival in countries afflicted by violent conflicts, with
children suffering the most, the United Nations report said. Battles between
armed groups within nations have increased 125 percent since 2010, with hunger
often enlisted as an allied aggressor. Conflict in South Sudan produced “a
humanitarian catastrophe on a massive scale.” Famine was declared in some parts
of that country this year, with two out of five people suffering severe hunger
and food deprivation “being used as a weapon of war,” the report noted.
In
Yemen, 60 percent of the population — 17 million people — live in hunger and
need urgent help. Similar conditions were underlined in Nigeria and Somalia.
The human destruction wrought by rampant conflict was clearest, perhaps, in
Syria, whose once-vibrant middle-income population has been decimated by civil
war. An estimated 85 percent struggles in poverty now, with more than six
million people suffering persistent hunger in a land where agriculture has been
devastated.
Compounding these
problems globally are the disruptions of climate change — droughts and floods,
as well as political crises and severe economic drops in nations reliant on
commodity exports, the study found.
If
the diplomats at the United Nations are paying attention to the world out
there, the report should prod them into a fresh look at hunger and an increased
resolve to drive it back down. There are signs of hope, notably an increase in
better nutrition through the breast-feeding of infants.
Impact
will occur if the farmer feel proud over food production that they do without
anyone feeling depressed, unappreciated, and not important.
Transformation
program farmers can become an example of rural Entrepreneurship program is for
Agricultural Cooperation by Heifer International in Haiti, who are committed to
rebuilding communities in rural areas and increase economic opportunities.
Community
farmers should soon be developed appropriately so that small farmers are able
to fullfill his needs and preparing to produce food in the face of the
development of the population very quickly.
Reference :
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/world-hunger-united-nations.html
