Socrates said that the best sauce for food is hunger.

Today, as in the age of Socrates, there is

no lack of hunger sauce. There is widespread concern about the relationship between
population and food supply throughout the world. Numerous actions have been proposed.
Jean Mayer, the famed nutritionist, holds that a 10 per cent decrease in meat consumption by
Americans would release enough grain to feed 60 million people. The concern about the
relationship between population and the food supply is not new. Sir Thomas Malthus
predicted in 1798 that population would continually increase faster than the food supply,
causing chronic food shortages. Today, in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America the food
problem looms large. The prospect of world famine is held before us with hundreds of
millions of people starving.The world food crisis is caused primarily because of unequal
distribution. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person per
day worldwide. The problem, therefore, is not of production but clearly of access and dis-
tribution.The average calories available (2807 per person per day) exceed average
requirements (2511 per person per day) worldwide. The other reasons of food shortage cited
are population explosion and numerous other reasons like war, droughts, floods, earthquakes,
and the like.

India has a serious hunger problem which gets worse each day. Only a few years ago, the
food situation appeared fairly bright. There was an agricultural boom, with food production
doubling from 1950 to 1970. Yields increased, stocks of food were built up, and India
produced more food than it consumed as weather and technology contributed to bumper
yields in a Green Revolution. Today, however, the hunger problem in India commands the
worlds attention.

There are two kinds of food insufficiency:

Undernourishment and Malnutrition. Both of these are global problems.

(1) Undernourishment:

Undernourishment occurs when the body does not consume enough food or enough calories
to support its needs. As a result, the body begins to break down its own stored fats and
proteins.

Like malnutrition the result of a diet that is lacking in certain nutrients (such as protein or
vitamins) undernourishment is common in poor countries. Both lead to a reduction in
mental and physical efficiency, a lowering of resistance to disease in general, and often to
deficiency diseases such as beriberi or anemia. In the developing world, lack of adequate
food is a common cause of death.

In 1996, an estimated 195 million children under the age of five were undernourished in the
world. Undernourishment is not just a problem of the developing world only. There were an
estimated 12 million children eating inadequately in the USA in 1992. According to UN
figures there were 200 million Africans suffering from undernourishment in 1996.

Millions of people, including 6 million children under the age of five, die each year as a
result of hunger. Of these millions, relatively few are the victims of Famines. Far more die
unnoticed, killed by the effects of chronic hunger and malnutrition, a covert famine that
stunts their development, saps their strength and cripples their immune systems.
Malnourishment is the lack of the minimum amount of fluids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids,
vitamins, minerals and other nutrients essential for sound health and growth.

Faulty nutrition may result from poor diet, lack of appetite or abnormal absorption of
nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract. Whether in their mildest or most severe form, the
consequences of poor nutrition and health result in a reduction in overall well- being and
quality of life, and in the levels of development of human potential.

Malnutrition can result in productivity and economic losses, as adults afflicted by nutritional
and related disorders are unable to work; education losses, as children are too weakened or
sickly to attend school or to learn properly; health care costs of caring for those suffering
from nutrition-related illnesses; and costs to society of caring for those who are disabled and,
in some circumstances, their families as well.

Malnourished children who survive childhood thus face diminished futures as adults with
compromised abilities, productivity and health. This loss of human potential is all the more
tragic in societies with little economic capacity for therapeutic and rehabilitative measures,
and has the unfortunate effect 01 worsening their economic plights.

By one reckoning the worldwide loss of social productivity associated with four overlapping
types of malnutrition nutritional stunting and wasting iodine deficiency disorders and
deficiencies of iron and vitamin A amounted to almost 46 million years of productive,
disability-free life.

With an aim to produce more, intensive irrigation involved as part of the agricultural
technology following the Green Revolution has resulted in soil alkalinity and depletion of
soil micronutrients. Efforts at correcting this through periodic soil testing and soil repletion
have been tardy. Depletion of soil iodine is part of this problem and is reflected in the
diminished content of iodine in foods and water.

Hunger hotspots:

As of July 2003, 36 countries around the world faced serious food emergencies requiring
international food assistance. The causes of these food shortages were varied and complex.
All the countries affected in 2003 had experienced food emergencies for at least two
consecutive years. Many had been plagued by severe food shortages for a decade or longer.

In southern Africa, food production has started to recover from the severe drought that
reduced harvests by as much as 50 percent in 2001/2002. But several countries in the region
still face severe shortages and all must contend with the long-term impact of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic.

Further to the north, pre-famine conditions have been reported in Eritrea and parts of
Ethiopia, where crops have withered, livestock are dying from lack of water and grazing, and
millions of people need emergency food aid. Several Asian countries have also been facing
the effects of harsh weather, including drought and unusually cold snows winters in
Mongolia.
Although drought and other natural disasters remain the common causes of food
emergencies, an increasing proportion are now human-induced in several countries in Central
and West Africa, civil strife has disrupted both food production and access to food.

Even developments in international commodity markets can trigger food crises in countries
that depend heavily on agricultural exports or food imports. The collapse of coffee prices has
been a major cause of increased food insecurity in Central America.

Overall, conflict and economic problems were cited as the main cause of more than 35
percent of food emergencies during 1992-2003. The recurrence and persistence of
emergencies highlights a number of countries that could be considered as food emergency
hotspots.

Thirty-three countries experienced food emergencies during more than half the years of the
17-year period between 1986 and 2003. Many conflict-induced complex emergencies are
persistent and turn into long-term crises. Eight countries suffered emergencies during 15 or
more years during 1986-2003. War or civil strife was a major factor in all eight.