End World Hunger

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