LBL Participant
Back in 2002, the United Nations decided that by 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger should be cut in half from 1990 levels. We nearly met this target of a basic human right, alongside the other Millennium Development Goals, yet almost 800 million people (over 10% of the world's population) are still undernourished. In the next iteration, the UN set its sights higher with the Sustainable Development Goals, aiming to end world hunger by 2030. While this seems like a no-brainer in this day and age - how many people would argue that people
So let's start with what should be a relatively straight-forward and objective topic - weather and a changing climate. Food shortages have been attributed to periods of drought, severe rainfall, and pests for millennia. Rainfall changes might spread diseases that wipe out crops, as prompted the Irish potato famine in 1845. The failure of the monsoon in India has taken blame for famines at the end of the 19th century. And while anticipated overdrawn aquifers and more intense storms may undermine crop and livestock production, our fisheries that feed the world's poorest are at risk from rising sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. Even countries like Australia, with a particularly vulnerable agriculture sector, are not exempt from the impacts. Yet politically stable, wealthy nations have the capacity - that many other countries do not - to
This leads us to the topic of conflict, which can be both cause and result of food scarcity. This isn't news; back in the early 1990's, researchers argued that conflict and civil strife were the prime suspects instigating famines. A recent article in The Conversation captures the sentiment that famines don't "just happen", but are driven by particular social and political circumstances.
So enter 2017, where there is "high risk of famine in some areas of north-eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen because of armed conflict, drought and
Hunger may seem worlds away for many of us, but it is truly naive to believe that the instability and unrest that is both a contributor and a result of food insecurity is isolated, without far-reaching implications in terms of political security, counter-terrorism, and global food production. In some ways, countries "worlds away" are culpable; for example, the US provided weapons to the Saudis then used to stoke the war in Yemen. It is withdrawing aid to vulnerable regions in Africa. And finally, several countries facing famine are also on the proposed travel ban in the US, a cruel and unfeeling move, but also one way of
It's clear that governments are not working in favour of the health and prosperity of their populations, so it’s more important than ever that we try to support efforts that are attempting to improve the human condition (and ultimately the environment on which we rely).
Rachel is currently a PhD student at