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Overview:
Although thirty million people a year die of hunger, insufficient amounts of food are not the root of the problem. Instead, world hunger results from an uneven distribution of produced food. In addition, every year we, as a global community, produce more food, so every year there are MORE PEOPLE, especially in developing nations, causing a reciprocating cycle of worldwide hunger. Nevertheless, world agriculture actually produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. Current levels of food production allow consumption of 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (Food and Agriculture Organization 2002, FAO 1998), but the food is not reaching the masses. Especially in developing countries, people do not have enough land to produce food or enough income to purchase land, while developed countries have the resources to produce food, but fall short in worldwide distribution. Malnutrition and undernourishment are both direct results of the growing world food distribution problem. The increase in population is only aiding the despair in the developing countries of our world.
Despite the worldwide ability to produce enough food to meet the current population, several obstacles impede global distribution and alleviation of world hunger. Problems include:
War (which prevents developing countries from receiving aid)
Natural disasters, especially drought (which destroy agricultural production)
Agricultural infrastructures (which limit true agricultural potential from being fulfilled)
Overexploitation of the environment, including poor farming practices, deforestation, overcropping, overgrazing, erosion, salination, and desertification)
Poverty
Statistics:
Hunger and poverty claim 25,000 lives every day
Poor families spend over 70% of their income on food. An average American family spends over 10%
Some 840 million people have insufficient intakes of protein and calories. (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3741/is_5_47/ai_54757648)
One child dies every five seconds from hunger and related causes.
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