PHM-Exch> HUNGER and MALNUTRITION: IN SEARCH OF THE BIG PICTURE IN OUR WORK IN DEVELOPMENT

[Claudio Schuftan]

For many of us, undernutrition and hunger are nothing but the biological
translation of a social disease with particular historical roots in each
case. Their basic causes will here be called macro-causes. The more
immediate and underlying causes will here be called micro-causes.

Macro-causes are conditioned by the overall policies that govern economies,
both within any country and in foreign relations and trade.  With many
others, I contend that macro-causes explain most undernutrition and hunger
in societies with capitalist modes of production. Nutritional vulnerability
is a manifestation of a society's inability to enable its poor populations
to earn their livelihoods adequately and not an issue of overpopulation or
of insufficient agricultural production. In short, impoverished societies
struggle for their own livelihood while actually contributing to the
livelihood of other societies.

For the full text, go to

http://wp.me/plAxa-1fk

Claudio
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