The Economics Of Starvation

Al-Ahram Weekly, 6 - 12 April 2000
Issue No. 476

The economics of starvation

     By Sameh Naguib

     Fifteen years ago, a devastating famine left over one million
people dead in the Horn of
     Africa. As ministers meet at the first Africa-Europe Summit here in
Cairo, the region is
     faced yet again with the threat of famine. As in previous cases of
famine, the direct causes
     are drought, war and the pressures of refugee movement across the
region; however there
     are more fundamental causes for famines, hunger and malnutrition.

     An estimated 24,000 people die every day from hunger or
hunger-related causes;
     three-quarters of them are children under the age of five. The
majority of hunger deaths are
     caused by chronic malnutrition. Families simply cannot get near
enough to the minimum
     required daily calorie intake. Besides death, chronic malnutrition
causes impaired vision,
     listlessness, stunted growth and greatly increased susceptibility
to disease. Severely
     malnourished people are unable to function at the most basic level.

     It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer
from hunger and
     malnutrition, and the situation is not improving. In the early
'90s, only 37 developing
     countries achieved a reduction in the number of undernourished
people. In the rest of the
     developing world, the number of hungry people actually increased by
almost 60 million.

     More than half the countries for which statistics are available do
not have enough food to
     provide their entire population with the minimum daily requirement
of calories. Across Africa the average household
     now consumes 25 per cent less than in the early 1970s. Between 1995
and 1997, only 21 out of 147 Third World
     countries recorded per capita growth of over three per cent a year,
the level estimated necessary to reduce poverty.

     The contrast between wealth and hunger in this "new world order"
can only be described as obscene. The wealth of
     the world's 15 richest people now exceeds the combined gross
domestic product (GDP) of the whole of
     sub-Saharan Africa. The wealth of the 84 richest individuals
exceeds the GDP of China, which has 1.2 billion
     inhabitants. There are 1.2 billion people living on less than a
dollar a day and nearly 3 billion people (half the world's
     population) live on less than $2, according to a UNDP Development
Report in 1999.

     The logic of the world food market is particularly conducive to
starvation. Advanced countries in Europe and North
     America, as well as Japan, produce over three-quarters of the
world's exports of foodstuffs. These countries
     maintain schemes to protect their agricultural production. In
general, people in these countries pay vastly inflated
     prices so that high and stable prices can be guaranteed to the farm
and food processing sectors. One of the first
     results of this system is a decline in imports, which translates as
a loss to Third World countries that export
     foodstuffs.

     To keep the prices up, governments create massive stocks of
foodstuffs, which are then taken off the market. World
     grain stocks exceed 200 million tonnes, while the shortfall of
grain in the Horn of Africa will not exceed 10 million
     tonnes. The cost of storing food in Europe alone runs in tens of
billions of dollars, but the massive cost of storing vast
     quantities of food leads governments to the "logical" conclusion
that they must either process it into something else or
     simply dump it.

     The fragile integration into the world market means that any
serious fall in the demand for Third World exports leads
     inevitably to hunger. Without export earnings, it is virtually
impossible for governments to subsidise food for the
     poor. Moreover, the peasant farmers can ill afford to buy the
fertilisers, pesticides, oil and machinery to keep up
     their own subsistence farming practices, let alone producing cash
crops.

     Famines are not caused by nature, they are part of the global
business cycle; the boom and slump of world capital.
     And like slumps, famines always serve to strengthen the rich and
weaken the poor. When an African country is
     stricken by famine, it is not the state that starves but the poor
majority. The rich actually get richer as the prices of
     land and labour tumble and as the powerful monopolise the flow of
food aid.

     The power of food-exporting countries like the US and Europe is
also greatly enhanced during famines. Washington
     has always used food relief -- in the words of a former US
secretary of agriculture -- as "a tool in the kit of US
     diplomacy." Food supplies can be used to reverse the policy of a
foreign government, to subordinate, subvert,
     punish and control.

     Famine sums up the essence of a world order based on profits and
state power. Political and business leaders in
     both industrialised and developing nations avoid doing anything
that might jeopardise profits and their networks of
     vested interest. Anything that might encourage the absurd notion
that food surpluses ought to be eaten -- rather than
     sold at the market price or else destroyed -- is hushed up. There
is no shortage of food, yet scarcity is forced on
     those who have no money to buy it.

     Today 10 per cent of children in developing countries die before
the age of five. The world has an unprecedented
     capacity to produce -- to feed and cloth everyone -- but it is
dominated by a system that produces waste and
     hunger instead.

     In the words of the celebrated late Spanish playwright Frederico
Garcia Lorca, "The day that hunger is eradicated
     from the earth will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world
has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy
     that will burst into the world."

     Such a day will only come when production and distribution are
determined by need rather than profit.


--

Mine Aysen Doyran
PhD Student
Department of Political Science
SUNY at Albany
Nelson A. Rockefeller College
135 Western Ave.; Milne 102
Albany, NY 12222