Compulsory Blog Post 3

Compulsory Blog Post 3:

Sustainable Food Consumption. How can we be a part of the solution?

What is hunger and how can we measure it?

Right now there are over ONE BILLION people suffering from chronic hunger.

One billion.

That’s hard to comprehend, right?

It's nearly 1 in 6 people worldwide. Imagine 1 in 6 people at school not having enough food. But our friends and teachers at school are OK, aren’t they? So, the hungry must be somewhere else…



Dom on the computer

There are two main ways of defining poverty. The World Bank considers a person to be in absolute poverty if his or her consumption or income level falls below a minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. Robert McNamara, the former President of the World Bank, described absolute or extreme poverty as "…a condition so limited by malnutrition, disease, and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency." Poverty is defined as people whose income is less than a dollar a day.

So what does poverty have to do with hunger? Poverty is like a whirlpool- once you get stuck in it, it is very hard to get out of. And the faster and faster you spin, the more you start to hurt.

Poverty traps people in a downward spiral or cycle—a lack of food which leads to poor health, which leads to being unable to work, which leads to even greater poverty, and the cycle continues on and on, that is until someone steps in and starts to help, freeing the person from this dangerous and (life threatening) cycle.

There are two main ways of measuring poverty, all of which have been developed by geographers. The first is called the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI  assesses three key areas of a person’s life, income (as measured by GDP per capita), life expectancy, and literacy and education levels.



Our whole school getting involved

The HDI takes into account so many different aspects of a person’s quality of life, so it is a very accurate measurement of a person’s standard of living. Therefore, it also measures a country's level of poverty.

The second way of measuring poverty is to collect data from all over the world and then compare it with poorer/richer countries. The statistics that geographer’s measure is called Development Indicators. Development Indicators measure things such as: access to fresh water, population per physician, seats in parliament held by women, internet use, type of government and the infant mortality rate. As I have identified previously, poverty = hunger so these development indicators show levels of poverty. Therefore, they also show which countries/areas are more prone to hunger.

Why are people hungry?

Every year hard-working, dedicated farmers work tirelessly to provide enough food for the entire world. There is enough food for every person in the world, no matter what age, sex, or race. So why isn’t this the case? Why do innocent children, not just in developing countries such as Africa, but here home in Australia, suffer every day from hunger and malnutrition? Why do rich countries wallow in wealth, yet developing countries struggle to feed even the rich?



Aimee and Mr Rea working hard

All of these questions can be answered with one answer: GLOBAL INEQUALITY. 

Food, funds, and resources are not spread evenly across the world with richer countries getting excess amounts, and poorer countries getting not enough.

In order to cure the world’s global inequality crisis we need to get to the base of the problem: WASTE. Waste by the wealthy, by the poor, by supermarkets, by production companies, by CONSUMERS. Over 4 million tonnes of food is wasted every single year in Australia. Research shows that over 1.2 million Australian’s do not have access to a safe and nutritious food supply.

While researching this topic, our class was astounded by the Art4Ag blog post, “A Culture of Waste”. Here Lynne Strong detailed the immense pressure our farmers are under to supply consumers' enormous amounts of food to cope with the amount of food that is wasted every day. The process of growing, processing, packing, transporting and finally delivering is an extremely difficult and long process. Not only does it take enormous amounts of energy to complete this process, because of consumers' rising standards, a lot of fresh produce is thrown away for commercial purposes. This means that if the fruit/vegetable is slightly dented or has a small spot on its skin, it has to be thrown away because it is not allowed to be sold for commercial purpose.

So when the produce is FINALLY delivered (or sold) to the consumer a considerable portion of the food usually isn’t even eaten and is instead thrown away.



Olivia, Sophia and Emma

So what does someone in Australia throwing away a bunch of bananas have to do with a child dying of malnutrition in Africa? Well as I mentioned before, there is enough food produced every year to feed the entire world yet not everyone gets enough to eat. The connection between the bananas being wasted in Australia to a child dying of malnutrition is that the bananas wasted here, may have saved the child in Africa from death. The issue is not that one bunch of bananas was wasted but is the fact this waste occurs every day, in many developed countries on an enormous scale.

But waste is simply one out of many factors that contributes to world hunger. Some other factors that contribute to this problem include: politics, war, drugs, violence, gangs, female and male inequality and finally, economics.

Connections between income, undernourishment, and food consumption

As mentioned previously, poverty is like a whirlpool and is directly related to a standard of living in a person’s life.

Using the above diagram as a guide, can you see the connection between incomes (money), undernourishment (hunger), food consumption (how much you can eat)?

What is the link between poverty and hunger?

Here is a connection between poverty, in the world we live in, and the hunger problems people are facing at this time. The link that connects these two together, revolve around the fact that when money is needed, but not available, there are consequences that are limiting people's ability to access food on a daily basis. 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, the absolute poverty level. Without money, there is a limited supply of food in these people's diet. Over 800 million people or one in every six, are malnourished, 200 million of whom are children. The facts are shocking but true, and it makes a lot of my friends, and myself, stop and think about what we are doing, as individuals.



"Yes! We got the wool bale on!"

What is the role of government in reducing hunger within a country?

The role of the government in reducing hunger within a country, is keeping track of the percentage of malnourished people, and organising something to be significant change to the statistics. The government has supported some organisations to reduce hunger and poverty, in developing countries. Over time, the percentage of malnourished people has dropped, significantly, but there is still an unacceptable percentage of people experiencing severe hunger. 

Although governments have kept with the Millennium Development Goals, there are Non-government organisations doing a great deal and making change. I wonder, why these NGOs are not being entirely supported by government, but I am focusing on what is the role of government in reducing hunger in a country. Things like reducing food waste, donating money to developing countries and endless works of organisations.

What is the role we can play in reducing food waste?

Food wastage is a problem we are facing around the world. Australia is such a lucky country! Each year farmers produce enough food to feed 60 million people. This is very good to hear, but with that, 4 million tonnes of food is wasted every year. This amount of food, could feed millions of Australians every day. This amount of food is wasted because we buy more than we consume.  The question is - what can we do about it? There are many ways we can play a role in reducing food wastage which will in turn reduce hunger problems including:

•             source reduction

•             feed malnourished people

•             feed animals

•             Industrial uses

•             composting

•             landfill / incineration

The simplest way of reducing food wastage, is simply by not buying unneeded supplies of food and to make sure we are not wasting the food we buy.

How can we as a country play a role in helping to reduce world hunger?

World hunger is a problem people are facing every day. The thought of people lying lifelessly on the ground, rivers of blood dripping down their feet and their stomachs growling like an earthquake is a very strong and heartbreaking thought, in which paralyses my mind in a state of sadness. We all live on food and water. Yes, there is exercise and all other factors, improving our health, but food and water is at the top of our list. I can’t imagine living without food and water, and thinking about the people facing hunger problems makes me think about what we as a country can do in helping to reduce world hunger.

Non-government organisations are out there, helping people build up strength to have those life opportunities that us Australians have. Donations have been and are being given throughout developing countries, but as these donations last for a while, there comes a point when there is a limited supply, again.

We love our Aussie Farmers!