THE GLOBAL POLITICS OF HUNGER
Studying hunger moves beyond abstractions of IR; little is more concrete
than food and hunger.
The Current Situation
*FOOD: 1 billion chronically undernourished
40,000 people, mostly children, die of starvation daily
Avg. daily food consumption in LDC's = little over 1/2 AICs
Inequity & waste: can of diet soda = 2,400 cals of energy
to produce for 1 cal of nutrition; same energy cd. produce
7000 cal. of food.
Q: How wd. paradigms address world hunger? Realism? Grotians? Marxists?
Inclusionists?
EX: Cold War: food to pol'ly acceptable countries (realist)
I. Food Production and Markets
A. Thomas Malthus: pop. growth >> starvation >> pop. decline.
Didn't foresee tech. innovations: tractors, fertilizer, etc.
But can tech. keep up with pop. growth (double by 2050)?
-- Production/capita declining, but biotech offers promise
[Optimists & pessimists in GI readings]
Q: How do the assumptions of optimists & pessimists differ?
B. Rise of world food market (after 1970)
Before then, trade limited mostly to delicacies.
Major commodities today
1. Wheat = dietary staple in temperate regions;
= most impt. food in trade.
U.S. accounts for 40% of all exports.
2. Rice = staple for 1/2 of world's pop. (Asia)
U.S. is not the major producer, but is #1 exporter.
3. Corn: primarily used for feed, eaten in Latin Am.
US produces 1/2 world's corn.
C. U.S. dominates intl agric. trade
20% of all U.S. export earnings from agric. Countries tend to
subsidize crops that are central to citizens' diets: Asian
countries support rice
**Q: What does U.S. tend to subsidize? sugar, wheat, dairy
D. Positive aspects of world food market
1. Frees countries from needing food self-suffiency, makes
labor available for industrial production.
2. Exporters use their resources fully: comp. adavantage
3. Countries w/ shortages due to bad weather can turn to world
market for relief.
E. Negative aspects
1. Seduces LDC leaders away from agric. self-sufficiency,
posing probs. if food shortages increase prices.
-- Export-led growth >> cash crops, not food grown.
Coffee, sugar, cotton in poor countries.
2. Scarce hard currency goes to food imports.
3. Inc'd chance of global famine triggered by simultaneous
crop failures.
II. Food-energy connection
Throughout history, food grown w/i constraints of solar energy.
But agric. has undergone its own industrial revolution:
*Fossil fuel-based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, machinery
all boost production (recall coffee).
*Tranportation of food depends upon trucks, ships, etc. Worldwide
food web held together by oil.
>> Unlike past generations, only a small portion of the pop. in
much of the world is involved in producing food "We put oil into
the soil so we do not have to toil.
A. World food market subject to boom & bust cycles like those in the
oil industry (follows them)
1960's: superabundance of food
1970's: major famines (Bangledesh) & oil shocks >>
>> "world food crisis" 1974 UN World Food Conference
**Show transparency
1980's: oil glut & another pd. of world food surplus.
1990s: food shortage, even tho. oil prices are low
**Show transparency of this >>
*Q: How might a pessimist explain this?
wd. say that we have reached limits of output
B. Food mkt is mirror image of oil mkt
Exporters of food are importers of oil & vice versa.
1. Affluent countries sell oil-produced food to gain export
revenue to import oil for their farming
C. Green Revolution
Massive transfer of agricultural tech. thru intl. agencies
beginning in 1960s. Increased crop yields, esp. in Asia.
**Q: What might some of the neg. effects be?
DCs dependent on imported technologies like tractors, oil &
engineered seeds, it drove peasants off the land, & damaged the
envt. Good in short-term, but envt'l effects, including
pesticide resistance, have led to recent declines in crop yields.
III. The Global Livestock Economy
Biologist: "An alien ecologist observing earth might conclude
that cattle are the dominant animal species in our biosphere."
Domesticated animals outnumber humans 3:1;
mostly for meat for affluent.
Avg. American consumes over 2 kg/wk (India = 2 kg/year).
A. Grain consumption
In US, animals consume 70% of domestic grain.
(compare to 2% for India & sub-Saharan Africa)
B. Very energy & water intensive
1. The water used to supply a typical American w/ animal protein
each day = their daily home water use: 100 gals
C. Envt'lly disastrous
1. Huge quantities of waste >> rivers & groundwater
**Q: Can anybody think of a recent instance of this in media?
2. Tropical deforestation, esp. in Latin America
3. Desertification from overgrazing.
4. Lack of plant cover >> soil salinization.
5. Methane: 80 million tons from burps & farts (!)
6. Meat prices wd. triple if full envt'l costs were
internalized.
