Stark and Unsettling Facts about World Poverty and World Hunger
» More than 854 million people in
the world go hungry. (854 million hungry people in poverty!)
» One child dies of hunger-related
causes every five seconds, equating to
16,000 poor and hungry children each day.
» Rising food prices may soon tip
100 million more hungry people to the edge of
starvation.
» The prices of wheat, corn,
rice, and soy have doubled or tripled
in the past three years.
Throughout the world these
increased food prices are taking
an unprecedented toll, from developed
countries like the United
States, where a record 28 million hungry
people in poverty on food stamps (a program to fight poverty in America) in
2008, to third world countries like
Haiti and Kenya, where a desperate
need for food leads to hungry people rioting
in the streets. Two years ago, the
World Food Summit participants
promised to reduce the number of
undernourished people by half by
2015; instead, there has been a
dramatic increase in hungry people
in poverty in developing countries. The ones that suffer the most are the poor and hungry children.
Causes of Food Crisis
Most experts agree on the primary
reasons for the recent and projected increases
in global food prices. The record
price of fuel pushes up the cost of
food production, packaging, storing,
and transportation. The cost of fertilizer
has tripled in the U.S. and by perhaps as
much as fifty times in Kenya. World
food stocks are at record lows. The
United States, often called the breadbasket
of the world, finds its grain silos
as empty as the 1970’s, when the Soviet
Union bought most of its reserves.
The world population will soon
reach 6.8 billion, an awful lot of hungry mouths
to feed. Fast growing economies in developing
nations impact available food
supplies in several ways: 1) Urban expansion
pulls people from rural areas,
creating a smaller agricultural work
force as well as a loss of farm land. According
to “The Road to the Horizon”
(www.theroadtothehorizon.blogspot.com.),
China has lost an average of over one million
hectares of farmland annually, so
must now look to foreign farms to feed its
1.3 billion people. 2) Wealthy people eat
more meat. Producing one pound of beef
takes seven pounds of grain! 3) Emerging
economies, particularly India and China,
put pressure on resources of not only
food, but also land, water, and oil.
Droughts, particularly in
Australia, have dramatically reduced
available wheat and rice.
Biofuel policies gobble up grains,
especially corn. Some countries,
including India, Vietnam, Egypt,
and Brazil, are limiting or banning
exports of food in order to
protect their own populations of poor and needy.
Market economy speculation
based on supply and demand—
and profit—works to drive up
prices. The future’s market allows
farmers to sell their harvests ahead
of time, sometimes before they’ve
even been planted! Investors buy
low, betting that the price will go
up, as it surely has done in recent
times. This factor alone has doubled
the price of rice since last August.
In the face of this crisis, giant agribusinesses
are making record profits.
Monsanto reported a doubling of its net
income for the three months up to the
end of February compared to 2007.
Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of
the world’s largest fertilizer providers,
reported a twelve-fold increase in income
during that period! (Cited at www.independent.co.uk.)
A complicating factor for farmers all
over the world is that big business (primarily
Monsanto again) actually owns
the patents on thousands of seeds. Genetically
modified plants dominate the fields
of the United States, and increasingly, the
world. Currently 91% of soybeans in the
U.S. are a biotech variety and Monsanto’s
Roundup Ready soybeans are the most
widely planted, geneticallymodified crop
in the world (cited in “World Ark,”
May/June 2008). It has been said that
those who control the seeds control the
food supply of the world. If that is true, it
may be that the future of food in the world, and the plight of billions of poor and hungry children,
depends on the ethics of big companies.
The above is part of an article adapted from the July issue of Spotlight on Orphans newsletter. Spotlight on Orphans newsletter is published monthly by Hearth to Hearth Ministries (HTHM) which is working to fight poverty in Africa and reduce the number of poor and needy African children. HTHM is helping over 700 African orphans in 5 orphanages in Kenya and Uganda Africa. Help us end extreme poverty and hunger in Africa and feed poor and hungry children in Africa.
This is the number of first time visitors since August 20, 2008 that want to help the poor and needy and end hunger and poverty in the world. Help us feed the poor and hungry Children especially the orphans.
There are not only poor and hungry children in Africa we have hunger and poverty in America.
Keywords
hungry people in poverty in Africa Hunger in Africa
Poverty and Hunger
Hunger and Poverty
World hunger
absolute poverty
Absolute Poverty
Absolute Poverty is a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services. (According to a UN declaration from Copenhagen in 1995. Info in this section on absolute
In developing countries, poor and needy people
spend up to 80 % of their disposable income
on food.
There is no buffer to modify their food
costs. Those who always lived on the
edge of starvation have been tipped over
that edge by spiraling prices. Economic
theory known as Engel’s Law notes that
the proportion of a nation’s income spent
on food is a good measure of the nation’s
welfare.
This is part of an article from the July issue of Spotlight on Orphans newsletter. Read Spotlight on Orphans newsletters to see how Hearth to Hearth Ministries is fighting poverty in Africa by working to feed hungry children. The picture of the little African boy eating bread is the picture we have chosen for our poverty icon.
Poverty in America
The official poverty rate in the US was 12.3% for 2006. (The last year stats available for.) The US is now in a depression and the poverty rate of poverty in America is probably much worse now.