PHA-Exchange> WHY HALF THE PLANET IS HUNGRY

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From: "Kate Prendergast" <kate at fahamu.org>
To: "Equinet Newsletter" <EQUINET-Newsletter at equinetafrica.org>

WHY HALF THE PLANET IS HUNGRY
Amartya Sen
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=4553

Widespread hunger in the world is primarily related to poverty. It is
not
principally connected with food production at all. Indeed, over the
course
of the last quarter of a century, the prices of the principal staple
foods
(such as rice, wheat etc) have fallen by much more than half in 'real'
terms. If there is more demand for food, in the present state of world
technology and availability of resources, the production will
correspondingly increase. The demand for food is restrained mainly by
lack
of income. And the same factor explains the large number of people who
are
hungry across the world. Given their income levels, they are not able
to buy
enough food, and as a consequence these people (including their family
members) live with hunger.

But it is not adequate to look only at incomes. There is need to look
also
at the political circumstances that allow famine and hunger. If the
survival
of a government is threatened by the prevalence of hunger, the
government
has an incentive to deal with the situation. Incomes can be expanded
both by
policies that raise overall income and also by redistributive policies
which
provide employment, and thus tackle one of the principal reasons for
hunger
(to wit, unemployment in a country without an adequate social security
system). In democratic countries, even very poor ones, the survival of
the
ruling government would be threatened by famine, since elections are
not
easy to win after famines; nor is it easy to withstand criticism of
opposition parties and newspapers. That is why famine does not occur in
democratic countries. Unfortunately, there are a great many countries
in the
world which do not yet have democratic systems.

Indeed, as a country like Zimbabwe ceases to be a functioning
democracy, its
earlier ability to avoid famines in very adverse food situations (for
which
Zimbabwe had an excellent record in the 1970s and 1980s) becomes
weakened. A
more authoritarian Zimbabwe is now facing considerable danger of
famine.
Alas, hunger in the non-acute form of endemic under-nourishment often
turns
out to be not particularly politically explosive. Even democratic
governments can survive with a good deal of regular under-nourishment.
For
example, while famines have been eliminated in democratic India (they
disappeared immediately in 1947, with Independence and multi-party
elections), there is a remarkable continuation of endemic
under-nourishment
in a non-acute form. Deprivation of this kind can reduce life
expectancy,
increase the rate of morbidity, and even lead to under-development of
mental
capacities of children. If the political parties do not succeed in
making
endemic hunger into a politically active issue, hunger in this
non-acute
form can go on even in democratic countries.

What should rich countries do, and is trade liberalisation the answer?

The rich countries can do a great deal to reduce hunger in the world.
First,
the displacement of democracies in poor countries, particularly in
Africa,
often occurred during the Cold War with the connivance of the great
powers.
Whenever a military strongman displaced a democratic government, the
new
military dictatorship tended to get support from the Soviet Union (if
the
new military rulers were pro-Soviet) or from the United States and its
allies (if the new rulers were anti-Soviet and pro-West). So there is
culpability on the part of the dominant powers in the world, given past
history, and there is some responsibility now for rich countries to
help
facilitate the expansion of democratic governance in the world.

Second, hunger is related to low income and often to unemployment.
Poverty
could be very substantially reduced if the richer countries were more
welcoming to imports from poorer countries, rather than shutting them
out by
tariff barriers and other exclusions. Fairer trade can reduce poverty
in the
poor countries (as the recent Oxfam report Rigged Rules, Double
Standards
discusses in detail). Third, there is a need for a global alliance not
just
to combat terrorism in the world, but also for positive goals, such as
combating illiteracy and reducing preventable illnesses that so disrupt
economic and social lives in the poorer countries. Trade liberalisation
on
the part of the richer countries could certainly make a difference to
employment and income prospects of poorer countries. The situation is a
little more complex in the case of liberalisation of the poorer
countries.
Even those countries which have greatly benefited from the expansion of
world trade (such as South Korea or China) often went through a phase
of
protecting industries before vigorous expansion of exports and trade.
So,
trade liberalisation is partly an answer, but the economic steps
involved
have to be carefully assessed: the policies cannot be driven by simple
slogans.

What is the solution?

There is no 'magic bullet' to deal with the entrenched problem of
hunger in
the world. It requires political leadership in encouraging democratic
governments in the world, including support for multi-party elections,
open
public discussions, elimination of press censorship, and also economic
support for independent news media and rapid dissemination of
information
and analysis. It also requires visionary economic policies which both
encourage trade (especially allowing exports from poorer countries into
the
markets of the rich), but also reforms (involving patent laws,
technology
transfer etc.) to dramatically reduce deprivation in the poorer
countries.
The problem of hunger has to be seen as being embedded in larger issues
of
global poverty and deprivation.

Countries of the South increasingly seek food self-sufficiency. Could
this
solve the problem of hunger and starvation?

Food self-sufficiency is a peculiarly obtuse way of thinking about food
security. There is no particular problem, even without
self-sufficiency, in
achieving nutritional security through the elimination of poverty (so
that
people can buy food) and through the availability of food in the world
market (so that countries can import food if there is not an adequate
stock
at home). The two problems get confused, because many countries which
are
desperately poor also happen to earn most of their income from food
production. This is the case, for example, for many countries in
Africa. But
if these countries were able to produce a good deal of income (for
example
through diversification of production, including industrialisation),
they
can become free of hunger even without producing all the food that is
needed
for domestic consumption. The focus has to be on income and
entitlement, and
the ability to command food rather than on any fetishist concern about
food
self-sufficiency.

There are situations in which self-sufficiency is important, such as
during
wars. At one stage in the Second World War, there was a real danger of
Britain not being able to get enough food into the country. But that is
a
very peculiar situation, and we are not in one like that now, nor are
we
likely to be in the near future. The real issue is whether a country
can
provide enough food for its citizens - either from domestic production
or
imports or both - and that is a very different issue from
self-sufficiency.
We have to look at ways and means of eliminating poverty, and to
undertake
the economic, social and political processes that can achieve that.

Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, is Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge. This is a longer version of an article,
expanded
by the author, that appeared in Le Monde