How lack of food security is failing a starving world [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

How lack of food security is failing a starving world

Starvation is a symptom of a larger problem involving land, health, power and ecological damage, say experts

Alex Renton
The Observer, Saturday 8 June 2013 15.34 EDT

Last week another 1 million children under five were declared dead because of malnutrition. This was not because of another famine or a new disease, but simply that an eminent panel of doctors and academics working for the Lancet published findings that showed the existing research on child mortality had got it wrong.

So the tens of thousands of anti-hunger campaigners who met in Hyde Park yesterday should not have been spreading 2 million paper petals for each of those dead children – but 3.1 million. And the awful IF campaign headline statistic – that a child dies from hunger every 15 seconds – should have been "every 10 seconds".

These tragic figures are a big disappointment to a world that believes it is doing rather well on profound poverty. The numbers of humans living on less than $1.25 a day will be halved by 2015, a success for a Millennium Development Goal target set in 2000. But it turns out that, contrary to the wisdom of a generation of economists, growth does not necessarily reduce hunger, especially among the world's poorest. Child malnutrition has increased in India in the past decade, despite its economic boom. The world still has more than enough food – but distributing it fairly, or even humanely, is not simple at all.

The Lancet report was released to give a push to Saturday's half-day summit on nutrition and growth, called by David Cameron ahead of the G8 wealthy nations meeting in Ireland later this month. "Food security" is an agenda item there, though pushed lower than it was at the beginning of the year.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jun/08/food-security-failing-starving-world