Yes, we can feed our hungry world

The findings of the latest report by Global Hunger Index should not have been a surprise, since many experts have been warning that hunger has become more widespread because of climate change, wars, and soaring inflation. Nevertheless, the severity of global hunger has come as a shock.

Not only does the new report warn of an alarming hunger rate in far too many countries, it also states that decades of progress in tackling hunger in many countries is being eroded. Nearly 830 million people worldwide were found to be undernourished in 2021, 44 countries reported serious or alarming hunger levels, and 20 of these had worse figures than in 2014.

This is not the only report to raise the alarm. Earlier, in May, the Global Report on Food Crises, published by the UN’s World Food Programme, said a record high of nearly 193 million people in 53 countries were enduring a food crisis — an 80 percent increase compared with 2016.

Both reports warn that the situation is almost certain to become worse in 2023 because of climate change, conflict, and the lingering economic impact of COVID-19. What makes the situation even more challenging is that the countries facing the worst hunger crisis are also suffering from poverty, inequality, and poor infrastructure.

Extreme hunger and poverty are deeply intertwined, so the problem is more severe in places with the largest population of poor people, such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where urgent action is required. However, there is little evidence so far of governments in these countries stepping up to meet the challenges; instead, many continue to live in denial.

However, instead of taking these latest reports seriously, the Indian government quickly dismissed them as not being based on reality — even though the same problems have appeared in the carefully manicured data released by government agencies themselves. But India is not alone in being dismissive; many governments remain blind to these problems and fail to give them the priority they need.

The global community remains largely uninvolved, leaving a few multilateral agencies and aid organizations struggling to organize the resources they need to tackle the immediate problems.

What the world is sorely missing is the right approach to tackle hunger.

Ranvir S. Nayar

The situation is likely to worsen in the near future as none of the major drivers of hunger is likely to disappear soon. Even if the war in Ukraine — perhaps the easiest of the lot to resolve — ends in the next few months, its disruption of supply chains and the lost harvests or low crop yields are expected to linger on for months or years before the situation stabilizes.

Another major issue driving hunger is conflict in areas already affected by hunger. The prognosis on most of these conflicts is hardly encouraging; hotspots such as Ethiopia, DRC, West Africa, pockets of West Asia, and Myanmar are likely to stay the same or even worsen in 2023.

However, the biggest challenge is climate change, which is affecting harvests across the world, driving up uncertainty about food availability for people from all walks of life if food prices continue to spiral as they have done since the pandemic began.

As dark as the situation may be, it is not yet a lost cause. Despite all these challenges, global food production has been rising, give or take an exceptionally bad year. So the world has enough to feed everyone adequately to overcome hunger and malnutrition. The challenges, however, are twofold — first, having the right infrastructure to transport food and store it in areas where it is needed, and second making it accessible in terms of affordability.

With the use of technology and better farming techniques to optimize harvests without destroying the soil or causing long-term damage to the environment, it is possible to sustain agricultural production to ensure that everyone receives sufficient food, despite the impact of climate change.

What the world is sorely missing is the right approach to tackle hunger. First, the governments of the affected countries need to admit the problem’s existence and pledge all it takes to tackle the issue as a priority and ensure that everyone receives adequate food. For this, governments must ensure that everyone has access to free or subsidized food that is nutritious and wholesome, rather than just food grains.

These programs are, of course, expensive, and at times beyond the reach of some countries. It is here that the international community must step in to help. Although there is rising awareness of food wastage, the amount of food being wasted in developed countries is still so great that it could provide for millions of people for a year. The developed countries also need to keep up their commitments of contributions to international bodies such as the UN World Food Programme and the numerous charities that run food aid programs.

Hunger can be tackled, but only collectively.

• Ranvir S. Nayar is managing editor of Media India Group