Poverty, Unemployment and
Population Growth
Lecture 9
Myths about Hunger
The conceptual origins of "Myths about
Hunger" are found in a publication provided by FOOD FIRST in an
article entitled "Hunger Is Not a Myth, But Myths Keep Us From Ending
Hunger." Food First reminds us that between 400 million and a
billion people do not get enough to eat. Of those, twenty million will die.
Most of those who die are children.
Increased food production, advanced agricultural
techniques, and billions of dollars in foreign aid are not solving the problem
of hunger. Part of the explanation is that foreign aid is inevitably
tied to existing "structures of misery" (Michael Harrington, 1984).
By becoming aware of the misconceptions associated with hunger, it is hoped
that as a world community we can come closer to addressing the true dynamics of
hunger.
MYTH #1: Scarcity – People are hungry because there
is not enough food
Enough grain is grown worldwide to provide every
man, woman, and child with 3500 calories per day, which is what the average
North American consumes. Enough food is grown in worldwide to provide everyone
with an adequate diet.
The one common denominator in every country where
hunger is prevalent is that a few powerful people wield an ever tightening
control over food production, distribution, and other economic resources. A United Nations study found that in eighty-three countries worldwide,
3 percent of the population controls more than 80 percent of food production.
Redistributing control of food production would help to eliminate hunger.
MYTH #2: Overpopulation – Hunger
exists where there are too many people to feed
Population density by itself does not directly
correspond to the prevalence of hunger. Food First notes that Bolivia
has six times as much land under cultivation (per person) as China while 45
percent of Bolivia's people are hungry. China, on the other hand, has
eliminated widespread hunger.
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There are obvious long term problems associated
with rapid population growth, but rapid population growth is not in its self a
cause of hunger. Rapid population growth is a symptom of poverty.
Families who live in poverty give birth to several children to:
Ensure
the survival of some children because infant mortality rates are high.
and
because poor families depend on children to gather resources.
Overpopulation
will cease to be a problem when poverty is no longer a problem.
MYTH #3: Increased Production –
The solution to hunger is to use improved technology to produce more food.
Foreign aid facilitates this process.
Often efforts to increase food production have
ended up increasing the prevalence of hunger. Often
increased production is financed by First-World countries. Foreign assistance
provided by the United States government is often distributed by AID
(Agency for International Development). Food produced via First-World
financing is often exported back to the core leaving the local
population more hungry than before the aid arrived in their country.
Although fifty percent of AID's budget goes for
agriculture, rural development, and nutrition, AID does not do much to
alleviate hunger and malnutrition. AID's concentration in agriculture is
designed to increase agricultural production in crops destined for the U.S. and
to increase consumption of U.S. technology and farm products like fertilizer
and pesticides. While local farmers grow, process, and package fresh vegetables
for export to more affluent countries that can afford the exports, local hunger
and poverty persist and actually increases (Barry et al., 1983:91). Although
the aggregate economy of the local government expands, the daily lives of
individuals become more desperate. This is a sad contradiction in U.S. policy
toward Central America.
Foreign
investment distorts the local economy in the following ways.
A.
Further
Concentration of Wealth:
Foreign aid causes a further concentration of
wealth in poor countries. Farmers who can benefit from increased production use
their profits to buy out poorer farmers or they invest their profits in other sectors
of the economy. Land, therefore, is further concentrated in the hands of fewer
people.
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B.
Problems
Associated with Advanced Technology:
High technology itself is a problem because machinery replaces human
labor, thereby creating more unemployment and more poverty.
C.
Inflation:
The influx of large amounts of money creates other
economic problems, such as inflation, thereby further exacerbating the
existence of those who have to live at a subsistence level. Inflation occurs
when foreign money is used to buy farm implements. When extra money is
available to purchase certain items, the price of those items invariably goes
up. Money that may originally be intended to improve the immediate conditions
of the poor may create a situation where locals can no longer afford to buy
necessary items.
MYTH #4: Foreign Assistance is designed to Alleviate
Hunger
Of course, the assumption that foreign assistance
is designed to help the poor, the hungry, and the dispossessed is itself a myth. If the sole reason for foreign aid were to improve the conditions of
people living in developing countries, the goal should have already been met in
Central America. In 1982 alone, El Salvador received enough aid to
triple the per capita income of its one million poorest people (Barry et
al., 1983: 243).
The main purpose of foreign aid has never been to
help the world's starving masses or to encourage the economic development of
the Third-World in a manner that benefits the majority of people who live
there. Foreign aid is "an instrument of American national
security policy" (Nathan and Oliver, 1985:250). Foreign aid seeks
markets for U.S. investment and seeks to short circuit attempts to nationalize
U.S. interests. U.S. foreign aid also attempts to arrange treaties so that U.S.
interests are further promoted (Barry et al., 1983:83).
While speaking before the House Subcommittee of
Foreign Operations, Clarence Long sarcastically characterized U.S. foreign aid
as a process that takes "money from the poor in rich nations and gives it
to the rich in poor nations" (Barry et al., 1983:111).
Often, U.S. foreign aid has decisively
anti-humanitarian consequences. As First-World demand for agricultural exports
increase, the value of Third-World farm land also increases.
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MYTH #5:
Land Redistribution – Redistributing control over resources would mean even
less food production for the hungry because such redistribution would decrease
the efficiency of food production.
Three
aspects of centralized ownership act to produce more hunger.
A.
Centralization
Discourages Food Production
Anti-democratic systems of land tenure often leave
large tracts of land unused. Food First cites Brazil as an
example where most Brazilian land is in the hands of a few owners. In Brazil,
only about 15 percent of arable land is under cultivation.
B.
Land
Redistribution Encourages Production
Large scale producers grow less food per acre than
do small scale producers. To survive, small scale producers have to cultivate
every available acre. Large scale producers, on the other hand, can profit by
keeping acreage out of production. Large scale enterprises have significant
impact on local economies because they tend to control most of a given
commodity. By drying up supplies in specific commodities, the monopolies can
cause the price per unit of specific commodities to rise.
When land ownership is concentrated in the hands of
a few, returns from production are seldom invested in making agriculture more
productive. Instead, profits are invested in other areas of the economy that
can make even more profits for the landowners and further concentrate power and
resources.
MYTH #6:
Rich vs. Poor – Providing assistance to hungry people in poor countries is a
threat to high standards of living enjoyed by those in rich countries
The terms "rich country" and "poor
country" are not very meaningful when it comes to describing hunger
because all countries have hungry people. Furthermore, hunger is not a
Third-World issue. The United States has more than twenty million people who
are considered hungry while more than two billion pounds of government surplus
food sit in storage (Food First).
Similar economic conditions are in operation to
cause hunger in all countries of the world. In the U.S., and Third World
countries, small and mid-size farmers are being squeezed out of business
because they are unable to compete with corporate farms.
More and more, the economy is a world-economy.
Forces that affect poor people in the U.S. are the same ones that affect people
in Nicaragua or Southern Africa. When mega-corporations move to Mexico to take
advantage of "cheap" labor, poor Mexicans are exploited and Americans
lose jobs. The poor in foreign lands are not
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our enemy. They should be our allies in a common
effort to achieve secure and satisfying lives. As corporations operate ever
more on the world level, labor organizations as well must encourage
worker-unity on a world level.
MYTH #7: Goodwill – Everyone wants to end hunger
Corporations can benefit from hunger. Keeping land
idle can create huge profits. When supplies of a particular commodity are
scarce, demand and, therefore, prices rise. While land lies idle, those who are
already poor are pushed further into poverty. High levels of poverty and
unemployment are good for profits. When many people are desperate for work,
none can demand decent wages.
Governments of countries that have many poor people
also benefit from hunger. In some poor countries in Africa, the government can
pay as little as 20 percent of the market price for crops.
References
Barry,
Tom and Beth Wood, Deb Preusch, James Petras
1983 Dollars and Dictators: A Guide to Central America. New York:
Grove Press. Food First
"Hunger Is Not a Myth, But Myths Keep Us From Ending Hunger." Food
First Harrington, Michael
1984 The New American Poverty. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and
Winston. Hunger Action Forum
Hunger
Action Forum, July 1988:1
LaFeber,
Walter
1984 Inevitable
Revolutions: The United States and Central America. New York: W.
W.
Norton.
Questions
1. Discuss various myths about
hunger in the world.
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