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Chapter 6 Hunger, Poverty, and Economic
Development
Learning Objectives
6.1 Relate the evolution of food production to the increase in poverty and world hunger.
6.2 Describe the economic, political, and social conditions that cause famine and endemic hunger.
6.3 Explain the limitations of the various solutions to poverty and hunger. D
6.4 Summarize the relationship between economic development and hunger.
The persistence of widespread hunger is one of the most appalling features of the modern world. The fact that
so many people continue to die each year from famines, and that many millions more go on perishing from
persistent deprivation on a regular basis, is a calamity to which the world has, somewhat incredibly, got coolly
accustomed Indeed, the subject often generates either cynicism (“not a lot can be done about it’) or
complacent irresponsibility (“don’t blame me-it is not a problem for which I am answerable”).
-JEAN DRÈZE AND AMARTYA SEN, Hunger and Public Action
Our present global economic order produces a stable pattern of widespread malnutrition and starvation among
the poor, with some eighteen million persons dying each year from poverty-related causes, and there are likely
to be feasible alternative regimes that will not produce similarly severe deprivations. If this is so, the victims of
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persistent deprivation on a regular basis, is a calamity to which the world has, somewhat incredibly, got coolly
168
accustomed Indeed, the subject often generates either cynicism (“not a lot can be done about it”) or
complacent irresponsibility (“don’t blame me–it is not a problem for which I am answerable”).
+
–
– JEAN DRÈZE AND AMARTYA SEN, Hunger and Public Action
Our present global economic order produces a stable pattern of widespread malnutrition and starvation among
the poor, with some eighteen million persons dying each year from poverty-related causes, and there are likely
to be feasible alternative regimes that will not produce similarly severe deprivations. If this is so, the victims of
avoidable deprivations are not merely poor and starving, but impoverished and starved through an institutional
order coercively imposed upon them. There is an injustice to this economic order, which it would be wrong for
its more affluent participants to perpetuate.
– CARMEN G. GONZALEZ, World Poverty and Food Insecurity
At the end of World War II, public officials and scientists from all over the world predicted that with advances in modern
technology it would be possible by the end of the twentieth century to end poverty, famine, and endemic hunger in the
world. Freed from colonial domination and assisted by new global institutions, such as the United Nations and the World
Bank, the impoverished countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, people assumed, would follow paths to economic
development blazed by the core countries.
Today these optimistic projections have been replaced largely by resignation as over a 1.3 billion people are estimated to still
live on less than $1.25 per day, and almost 3 billion on less than $2.50 per day. Children are particularly vulnerable; food aid
organizations estimate that 3.1 million children die each year from inadequate diets and the diseases that thrive on
malnourished bodies. In addition, globally 161 million under-five year olds were thought to be stunted and 99 million were
underweight in 2013. As of 2015, global hunger has continued to decline, albeit gradually, to an estimated 795 million
undernourished people (FAO 2015).
Of those suffering from hunger, 94 percent live in developing nations. Most are subsistence farmers, landless families, or
people working in fishery or forestry. The remainder live in shantytowns on the fringes of urban areas. A quarter of the
hungry are children.
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Common misunderstandings about world hunger should be quickly dispelled:
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First, world hunger is not the result of insufficient food production. There is enough food in the world to feed 120 percent
of the world’s population on a vegetarian diet, although probably not enough to feed the world on the diet of the core
countries. Even in countries where people are starving, there is either more than enough food for everyone or the
capacity to produce it.
Second, famine is not the most common reason for hunger. Although famines, such as those in recent years in Ethiopia,
Sudan, Somalia, and Chad, receive the most press coverage, endemic hunger-daily insufficiencies in food-is far more
common.
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Third, famine itself is rarely caused by food insufficiency. When hundreds of thousands starved to death in Bangladesh in
1974, it was not because of lack of food. In fact, there was more food than there had been in the years leading up to the
disaster and more food than was produced in the years following. The starvation resulted from massive unemployment
brought on by flooded farmland and high food prices brought on by a fear of food shortages. People starved to death
because they couldn’t afford to buy food and had no land to grow their own.
Finally, hunger is not caused by overpopulation. Although growing populations may require more food, there is no
evidence that the food could not be produced and delivered if people had the means to pay for it. This does not mean
population and food availability play no role in world hunger; rather, it indicates that the relationship is far more complex
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than it appears.
The questions are, Why do people continue to starve to death in the midst of plenty? More importantly, is it still possible to
believe that poverty and hunger can be eliminated? If so, how? And if not, how can the poor adapt to their conditions?
To answer these questions, we need to know about the nature and history of food production and to understand the reasons
why people are hungry. There is a prevailing view that hunger is inevitable, but that need not be the case. We examine some
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The Evolution of Food Production: From the Neolithic
to the Neocaloric
6.1
Relate the evolution of food production to the increase in poverty and world hunger.
Until recently in world history, virtually everyone lived on farms, grew their own food, and used whatever surplus they
produced to pay tribute or taxes, to sell at local markets, and to keep for seed for the following year. Since the beginning of
the Industrial Revolution, people have left the land in increasing numbers, converging on cities and living on wages. As late
as 1880, half of the U.S. population was engaged in agriculture; this figure decreased to 38 percent by 1900, and to 18
percent by 1940. Today, less than 2 percent of Americans feed the other 98 percent, as well as millions of others around the
world who purchase the products of American agriculture (Schusky 1989:101). This shift of the population from farming to
other sources of livelihood is intensifying all over the world. Why do people leave the land on which they produce their own
food to seek wage employment, which requires that they buy food from others?
To answer this question, we need to understand the history of agriculture, why food production has changed, and how
economic and agricultural policies have resulted in increased poverty and hunger.
From Gathering and Hunting to the Neolithic
For most of their existence, human beings produced food by gathering wild plants-nuts, roots, berries, and grains-and
hunting large and small game. Generally, these people enjoyed a high quality of life. They devoted only about twenty hours
per week to work, and archaeological studies and research among contemporary gathering and hunting societies indicate
that food wativelynlantiful and nutritious Life snanandheelth standarde seam to have bann hatter than thaca
afbetar
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lo answer this question, we need to understand the history of agriculture, why food production has changed, and how
170 economic and agricultural policies have resulted in increased poverty and hunger.
+
–
From Gathering and Hunting to the Neolithic
For most of their existence, human beings produced food by gathering wild plants-nuts, roots, berries, and grains-and
hunting large and small game. Generally, these people enjoyed a high quality of life. They devoted only about twenty hours
per week to work, and archaeological studies and research among contemporary gathering and hunting societies indicate
that food was relatively plentiful and nutritious. Life span and health standards seem to have been better than those of later
agriculturists. Consequently, a major question for anthropologists has been why human populations that lived by gathering
and hunting began to plant and cultivate crops. Before 1960, anthropologists assumed that domesticating plants and
animals provided more nourishment and food security than gathering and hunting. But when, in the 1960s, the research of
Richard Lee and James Woodburn (see Devore and Lee 1968) revealed that the food supply of gatherers and hunters was
relatively secure and that the investment of energy in food production was small, speculation turned to the effects of
population increase on food production. Mark Cohen (1977) suggested that increases in population densities may have
required people to forage over larger areas in search of food, eventually making it more efficient to domesticate and cultivate
their own rather than travel large distances in search of game and wild plants. Even then the shift from gathering and hunting
to domestication of plants and animals must have been very gradual, emerging first on a large scale in Mesopotamia about
10,000 years ago during the Neolithic era. From that point until 5,000 years ago, settlements domesticated such plants as
wheat, barley, rye, millet, rice, and maize and began to domesticate animals such as sheep, goats, pigs, camels, and cattle.
Traditionally, animals have served as a farmer’s food reservoir, fed with surplus grains in good times and killed and eaten
when grain became scarce. Some, such as sheep, goats, cattle, and camels, eat grasses that human beings cannot eat,
thus converting cellulose to protein for human consumption in the form of meat and dairy products.
Slash and burn, or swidden, agriculture is the simplest way of cultivating crops; it is highly efficient when practiced correctly
and requires considerable knowledge of local habitats. In swidden agriculture, a plot of land is cleared by cutting down the
vegetation, spreading it over the area to be used for planting, and then burned. Seeds are planted, and the plants cultivated
and then harvested. After one to three years of use, the plot is more or less abandoned, and a new area cut, burned, and
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Slash and burn, or swidden, agriculture is the simplest way of cultivating crops; it is highly efficient when practiced corre +
and requires considerable knowledge of local habitats. In swidden agriculture, a plot of land is cleared by cutting down the
vegetation, spreading it over the area to be used for planting, and then burned. Seeds are planted, and the plants cultivated
and then harvested. After one to three years of use, the plot is more or less abandoned, and a new area cut, burned, and
planted. If there is sufficient land, the original plot lies fallow for ten years or more until bushes and trees reestablish
themselves; then it is used again. Of the four major factors in agricultural production-land, water, labor, and energy-
swidden agriculture is land intensive only. It uses only natural rainfall and solar energy and requires about twenty-five hours
per week of labor. For tools, swidden agriculture requires only an ax or machete and a hoe or digging stick.
Swidden agriculture is still practiced in much of the periphery, but only recently have researchers begun to appreciate its
efficiency and sophistication. Burning vegetation, for example, once thought only to add nutrients in the form of ash to the
soil, also kills pests, insects, and weeds. When practiced correctly, it is environmentally sound because it re-creates the
natural habitat. Swidden agriculturists must choose a site with the proper vegetation and desirable drainage and soil
qualities. They must cut and spread the brush properly and evenly to maximize the burn and the heat. Cuttings that dry
slowly must be cut earlier than those that dry quickly. Unlike in monoculture, the growing of a single crop-swidden plots
are planted with a variety of foodstuffs as well as medicinal plants and other vegetable products. Swidden agriculturists
must know when to abandon a plot so that grasses do not invade and prevent regeneration of brush and forest.
Furthermore, abandoned plots are rarely truly abandoned, being used to grow tree crops or attract animals that are hunted
for food.
Just as there is debate as to why gatherers and hunters began to practice agriculture, there is some question as to why
swidden agriculturists began to practice the more labor-intensive irrigation or plow agriculture. These techniques do not
necessarily produce a greater yield relative to the labor energy used; however, they do allow use of more land more often by
reducing or eliminating the fallow period. Land that in swidden agriculture would lie fallow is put into production. Irrigation
agriculture also allows continual production on available land, sometimes allowing harvest of two or three crops in a year.
Moreover, it permits the use of land that could not be used for agriculture without irrigation. Ester Boserup (1965)
suggested that increasing population density required more frequent use of land, eliminating the possibility of allowing land
to lie fallow to regain its fertility. Thus, plow and irrigation agriculture, while requiring greater amounts of work, does produce
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171 swidden agriculturists began to practice the more labor-intensive irrigation or plow agriculture. These techniques do not +
necessarily produce a greater yield relative to the labor energy used; however, they do allow use of more land more often by
reducing or eliminating the fallow period. Land that in swidden agriculture would lie fallow is put into production. Irrigation
agriculture also allows continual production on available land, sometimes allowing harvest of two or three crops in a year.
Moreover, it permits the use of land that could not be used for agriculture without irrigation. Ester Boserup (1965)
suggested that increasing population density required more frequent use of land, eliminating the possibility of allowing land
to lie fallow to regain its fertility. Thus, plow and irrigation agriculture, while requiring greater amounts of work, does produce
more food.
The productivity comes at a cost, however. Of the four agricultural essentials-land, water, labor, and energy-irrigation
requires more water, labor, and energy than swidden agriculture. In addition, irrigation generally requires a more complex
social and political structure, with a highly centralized bureaucracy to direct the construction, maintenance, and oversight of
the required canals, dikes, and, in some cases, dams. Furthermore, irrigation can be environmentally destructive, leading to
salinization (excess salt buildup) of the soil and silting. For example, it is estimated that 50 percent of the irrigated land in
Iraq and 30 percent in Egypt is waterlogged or salinized (Schusky 1989:72). Irrigated sites may also be used to dump
sewage and often harbor disease-carrying parasites and insects, resulting in an increase in such diseases as cholera,
typhoid, schistosomiasis, and malaria. Irrigated areas also serve as a haven for weeds. Finally, the shift to plow or irrigation
agriculture changed the division of labor between men and women (Boserup 1970). Generally, in swidden agriculture, men
clear the land and women burn the cuttings and care for the crops. In some areas today, such as sub-Saharan Africa,
women do the majority of the agricultural labor. However, in plow or irrigation agriculture, women tend to do less of the labor
– their labor shifts to domestic chores, and often the total amount of women’s labor increases as their agricultural labor
decreases (Ember 1983).
If we surveyed the world of 2,000 years ago, when virtually all of the food crops now in use were domesticated and in use
somewhere, we would find centers of irrigation agriculture in China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India, with later developments
coming in the Andes and Mesoamerica. Plow agriculture was practiced extensively in areas of the Middle East and Europe.
But where agriculture was necessary, swidden agriculture, if population levels and state demands for tribute permitted it,
must have been by far the most common. Moreover, until the twentieth century, there was little change or improvement in
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Capitalism and Agriculture
The next great revolution in food production was a consequence of the growing importance of world trade in the sixteenth
through eighteenth centuries and the gradual increase in the number of people living in cities and not engaged in food
production. The expansion of trade and growth of the nonfarming population had at least four profound consequences for
agricultural production.
First, food became a commodity that, like any other commodity, such as silk, swords, or household furniture, could be
produced, bought, and sold for profit. Second, the growth of trade and the number of people engaged in nonagricultural
production created competition for labor between agricultural and industrial sectors of the economy. Third, the growth of the
nonagricultural workforce created greater vulnerability on the part of those who depended on others for food. The availability
of food no longer depended solely on a farmer’s ability to produce it but also on people’s wages, food prices, and an
infrastructure required for the delivery, storage, and marketing of food products. Finally, the increasing role of food as a
capitalist commodity resulted in the increased intervention of the state in food production. For example, food prices needed
to be regulated; if they were too high, people might starve and industrial wages would need to increase; if they were too low,
agricultural producers might not bring their food to market. Import quotas or tariffs needed to be set to maximize food
availability on the one hand and protect domestic food producers on the other. New lands needed to be colonized, not only
to produce enough food but also to keep food production profitable. The state might also regulate agricultural wages or, as
in the United States, not regulate them. (Although the United States has had a minimum wage for industrial workers since
1937, there is still no minimum wage for farm workers.)
As it turned out, the most important change in food production inspired by the transformation of food into a capitalist
commodity was the continual reduction of the amount of human energy and labor involved directly in food production and
the increase of the amount in nonhuman energy in the form of new technologies, such as tractors, reapers, and water
delivery systems. The results of this trend continue to define the nature of agricultural production in most of the world.
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1937, there is still no minimum wage for farm workers.)
172
+
As it turned out, the most important change in food production inspired by the transformation of food into a capitalist
commodity was the continual reduction of the amount of human energy and labor involved directly in food production and
the increase of the amount in nonhuman energy in the form of new technologies, such as tractors, reapers, and water
delivery systems. The results of this trend continue to define the nature of agricultural production in most of the world.
Reducing labor demands in agriculture and increasing technology accomplishes a whole range of things that contribute to
trade and profit in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. First, substituting technology for human labor and reducing
the number of people involved in agriculture makes agriculture more profitable. Labor costs are reduced and agricultural
wealth is concentrated in fewer hands. Increasing technology also creates a need for greater capital investments. As a
result, those people with access to capital — that is, the more affluent-are able to profit, forcing the less affluent to give up
their farms. This further concentrates agricultural wealth. The increase in the need for capital also creates opportunities for
investors (banks, multilateral organizations, and commodity traders) to enter the agricultural sector, influence its operation by
supplying and/or withholding capital, and profiting from it.
Second, reducing the number of people in agriculture and concentrating agricultural wealth to ensure profits of those who
remain helps keep food prices and, consequently, industrial wages relatively low. This creates a danger of food monopolies
and the potential for a rise in prices. For example, cereal production in the United States is controlled by only a few
companies, and the prices of processed cereals such as cornflakes and oats are exorbitant as 0.04 cents of corn generates
$3 to $4 of cornflakes. Yet, as long as consumers are able to pay, the government is content not to intervene. As it is, food
cost as a percentage of the cost of living in the United States is among the lowest in the world.
Third, reducing agricultural labor frees labor to work in industry and creates competition for industrial jobs, which helps keep
wages low-that is, the more the number of people who are dependent for their livelihood on jobs, the lower the wages
industry needs to pay.
Finally, to keep labor costs down and increase the amount of technology required for the maintenance of food production,
the state must subsidize the agricultural sector. In the United States, for example, the government has financed irrigation
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It is important to note that until the 1950s, the technological intensification of agriculture did not substantially increase yi
– that is, though an American corn farmer needed only 100 hours of labor to produce one hectare (2.41 acres) of corn, the
amount of corn produced was no greater than that produced by a Mexican swidden farmer, working ten times as many
hours using only a machete and hoe. In other words, although mechanization made the American farm more economical by
reducing labor energy and costs, it did not produce more food per hectare (Schusky 1989:115). One question we need to
ask is, What happens when we export the American agricultural system to developing countries?
The Neocaloric and the Green Revolution
The culmination of the development of capitalist agriculture, a system that is technologically intensive and substitutes
nonhuman energy for human energy, was dubbed the neocaloric revolution by Ernest Schusky. For Schusky, the major
characteristic of the neocaloric revolution has been the vast increase in nonhuman energy devoted to food production in the
form of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and machinery.
David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel (1979) provided a unique perspective on the neocaloric. Their idea was to measure
the number of kilocalories produced per crop per hectare of land and compare it to the amount of both human and
nonhuman energy expended in kilocalories to produce the crop. Their work dramatized both the efficiency of traditional
forms of agriculture and the energy use required of modern capitalist agriculture.
1
1
‘A calorie or gram calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water from one degree Celsius to fifteen
degrees Celsius. The kilocalorie (kcal) or kilogram calorie is 1,000 gram calories or the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of
one kilogram of water from one degree Celsius to fifteen degrees Celsius. It can also be conceptualized as follows: One horsepower of
energy is the same as 641 kilocalories; one gallon contains 31,000 kilocalories; if used in a mechanical engine that works at 20 percent
efficiency, one gallon of gasoline is equal to 62,000 kilocalories of work, or one horse working at capacity for a ten-hour day, or a person
working eight hours per day, five days per week, for 2.5 weeks.
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174 Mexico
Now let’s examine plow agriculture with the use of an ox. One hour of ox time is equal to four hours of human time, so labor
input for one hectare drops to 197,245 kilocalories from 589,160 kilocalories. But the ox requires 495,000 kilocalories to
maintain. Moreover, the steel plow requires more energy in its manufacture, so fossil fuel energy used rises to 41,400, with
energy for seeds remaining at 36,608, for a total of 573,008. However, the corn yield drops significantly to half, so the input-
output ratio drops to 1:4.3. The reason for the drop is likely the lowering of soil fertility. If leaves, compost, or manure is
added to the soil, yields might increase, but so would the energy required to gather and spread the fertilizer.
a
Finally, if we consider a modern corn farmer in the United States, we find that, using modern farming machinery, herbicides,
insecticides, fertilizers, transport, and irrigation, the farmer produces about 7,000 kilograms of corn per hectare, almost
seven times that produced by the Mexican swidden farmer but at a cost of almost 25 million kilocalories. Consequently, the
input-output ratio is 1:3.5, far below the ratios of most “primitive” swidden farmers. In fact, in the United States, the ratio of
kilocalories used in crop production to kilocalories produced declined from 3.7:1 in 1945 to 2.8:1 in 1970. The question is,
Why has modern agriculture become so energy intensive?
The intensification of the use of technology in agriculture is largely the result of what has been called the green revolution.
The green revolution began with research conducted in Mexico by American scientists in the 1940s and 1950s sponsored by
the Rockefeller Foundation. Their goal was to develop higher-yielding hybrid strains of corn and wheat suitable for Mexican
agriculture. Soon the research produced dramatic results all over the world as farmers began using specially produced
strains of crops such as wheat, corn, and rice, called high-yielding varieties (HYVs). The productivity of the new seeds lay
largely in their increased capacity for using fertilizer and water. Whereas increased use of fertilizer and water did not increase
the yields of old varieties (in fact, it might harm them), it vastly increased the yields of the new varieties. Consequently, more
and more farmers around the world adopted them. Use of these new varieties was encouraged by the petrochemical
industry and fertilizer production plants, which sought to expand their markets. Thus, research efforts to develop HYV plants
were expanded in India, the Philippines, and Taiwan, encouraged by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
and the Rockefeller Foundation.
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175 industry and fertilizer production plants, which sought to expand their markets. Thus, research efforts to develop HYVpl + a
were expanded in India, the Philippines, and Taiwan, encouraged by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
and the Rockefeller Foundation.
But the green revolution soon ran into some problems. First, the new plants required greater inputs of fertilizer and water.
Because of the added energy costs, farmers often skimped on fertilizer and water use, resulting in yields similar to those
prior to the adoption of the new crops. Consequently, farmers returned to their previous crops and methods. Second, the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo in 1973 raised oil prices, and because fertilizers,
irrigation, and other tools of the green revolution were dependent on oil, costs rose even higher. Some people began to refer
to HYV as energy-intensive varieties (EIVS).
The expense was increased further by the amount of water needed for fertilizers. Early adaptations of the new technology
tended to be in areas rich in water sources; in fact, most of the early research on HYV was done in areas where irrigation
was available. When the techniques were applied to areas without the required water resources, the results were not nearly
as dramatic. It also became apparent that the energy required for irrigation was as great in some cases as the energy
required for fertilizer.
In addition, the green revolution requires much greater use of chemical pesticides. If farmers plant only a single crop or
single variety of a crop, it is more susceptible to the rapid spread of disease, which, because of the added expense, could
create catastrophic financial losses. Consequently, pesticide use to control disease becomes crucial. Furthermore, because
the crop is subject to threats from insect and animal pests at all stages of production-in the fields, storage, transportation,
and processing-pesticide costs rise even further.
Finally, the new fertilizers and irrigation favor the growth of weeds; therefore, herbicides must be applied, further increasing
energy expenditure.
One result of the change from subsistence farming, in which the major investment was land, to a form of agriculture that is
highly land, water, and energy intensive is, as Ernest Schusky (1989:133) noted, to put the small farmer at a major
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The Economics and Politics of Hunger
6.2
Describe the economic, political, and social conditions that cause famine and endemic hunger.
The obvious consequence of the reduction of labor needed for food production and the concentration of food production in
fewer hands is that the world’s population is more dependent on wage labor for access to food. Consequently, people are
more vulnerable to hunger if opportunities for employment decrease, if wages fall, or if food prices rise, they can starve even
in the midst of food availability. This is not to say that lack of food is never a factor in hunger, but it is rare for people to have
economic resources and not be able to acquire food.
The role of food in a capitalist economy has other important consequences. For example, food production is not determined
necessarily by the global need for food; it is determined by the market for food-that is, how many people have the means
to pay for it. That is why world food production is rarely at its maximum and why it is difficult to estimate how much food
could be produced if the market demand existed. The problem is that there are not enough people with sufficient income to
pay for all the food that could be produced, and so-called overproduction would result in lower prices and decreased
profitability. For that reason, in many countries, food production is discouraged. Furthermore, land that could be used to
grow food crops is generally dedicated to nonfood crops (e.g., tobacco, cotton, and sisal) or marginally nutritious crops
(e.g., sugar, coffee, and tea) for which there is a market. Finally, the kind of food that is produced is determined by the
demands of those who have the money to pay for it. For example, meat is notoriously inefficient as a food source, but as
long as people in wealthy countries demand it, it will be produced in spite of the fact that the grain, land, and water required
to produce it would feed far more people if devoted to vegetable crops. Thus, people in Mexico go hungry because land is
devoted to the production of beef, which few Mexicans can afford, but which brings high prices in the United States.
In addition, debt, as it does in so many things, plays an important role in poverty and food insecurity. We need to go back to
our discussion of the Bretton Woods agreements, the establishment of the World, Bank, the IMF and the Global Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs and ultimately the World Trade Oraanization Develoning countries mostiustemerains from colonial
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One result of the change from subsistence farming, in which the major investment was land, to a form of agriculture that is
175 highly land, water, and energy intensive is, as Ernest Schusky (1989:133) noted, to put the small farmer at a major
+
disadvantage because of the difficulty in raising the capital to finance the modern technological complex. The result in the
United States and elsewhere is the concentration of agricultural wealth in fewer hands and a constant reduction in the
number of small family farms. In 1950, for example, there were over five million farms in the United States, the vast majority,
over four and a half million, of less than 60 acres (Ross 1980). By 2016, there were 2.06 million with an average acreage of
442 acres (USDA 2017).
It is in livestock production, however, that the neocaloric revolution really comes into focus. One innovation of the past
hundred years in beef production was feeding grain to cattle. By 1975, the United States produced about 1,300 kilograms of
grain for every person in the country. But 1,200 kilograms of that was fed to livestock. Dairy cows are relatively productive
compared to beef cattle; it takes about 190 kilograms of protein to produce sixty kilograms of milk or about thirty-six
kilocalories of fossil energy to produce one kilocalorie of milk protein. Beef get about 40 percent of their protein from grazing
and 60 percent from grain. If we calculate the energy that goes into grain production and the operation of feedlots, the
productive ratio is as low as one kilocalorie produced for every seventy-eight kilocalories expended.
If we factor in processing, packaging, and delivery of food, the energy expenditure is even higher. David Pimentel estimated
that the American grain farmer, using modern machinery, fertilizer, and pesticides, uses eight calories of energy for every one
calorie produced. Transportation, storage, and processing consume another eight fossil calories to produce one calorie (see
Schusky 1989:102).
As Schusky said, in a world short on energy, such production makes no sense, but in a world of cheap energy, particularly
oil, especially if it is subsidized by the nation-state, it is highly profitable. The real problem comes when agricultural
production that substitutes fossil fuel energy for human energy is exported to developing countries. To begin with, there is
simply not enough fossil energy to maintain this type of production for any length of time. One research project estimated
that if the rest of the world used energy at the rate it is used in the United States, the world’s petroleum resources would be
exhausted on the food supply alone in the next ten to twelve years (Schusky 1989:119).
Furthermore, in countries with large rural populations, the substitution of energy-intensive agriculture for labor-intensive
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176 production that substitutes fossil fuel energy for human energy is exported to developing countries. To begin with, there +
simply not enough fossil energy to maintain this type of production for any length of time. One research project estimated
that if the rest of the world used energy at the rate it is used in the United States, the world’s petroleum resources would be
exhausted on the food supply alone in the next ten to twelve years (Schusky 1989:119).
Furthermore, in countries with large rural populations, the substitution of energy-intensive agriculture for labor-intensive
agriculture will throw thousands off the land or out of work, resulting in more people fleeing to the cities in search of
employment. And because modern agriculture is capital intensive, the only farmers who can afford to remain will be those
who are relatively wealthy, consequently leading to increasing income gaps in rural as well as urban areas. Where the green
revolution has been successful, small-farm owners have been driven off the land to become day laborers or have fled to
cities in search of jobs, as commercial investors bought up and continue to buy up agricultural land. Or more wealthy
farmers have bought their neighbors’ farms because only they had the capital to invest in fertilizers and irrigation.
Then there is the potential for green revolution II, the application of genetic engineering to agricultural production.
Genetically engineered crops are controversial, largely because of claims that they have not been rigorously tested and
because we do not know yet what effects the crops may have on the environment or on the people who eat them. Clearly,
claims by agribusiness concerns, such as Monsanto Corporation, that such crops will help us feed the hungry are, as we
shall see, disingenuous at best. Furthermore, in some cases, genetically engineered crops simply try to correct the damage
done by capitalist agriculture. For example, there is the much touted “golden rice,” a genetically engineered variety with
vitamin A that is a cure for blindness that afflicts some 300,000 people a year. Yet, as Vandana Shiva (2000) notes, nature
ordinarily provides abundant and diverse sources of vitamin A; rice that is not polished provides vitamin A, as do herbs such
as bathua, amaranth, and mustard leaves, which would grow in wheat fields if they were not sprayed with herbicides.
Overall it is clear that we have developed a system of food production that is capital intensive, favors large, state-subsidized
agribusiness, minimizes the use of labor, and subsequently makes more people dependent on wage labor with which to
obtain food. In the culture of capitalism, access to food is determined almost entirely by the ability to pay, not by the need to
eat.
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177
In addition, debt, as it does in so many things, plays an important role in poverty and food insecurity. We need to go bac +
our discussion of the Bretton Woods agreements, the establishment of the World, Bank, the IMF and the Global Agreement
on Trade and Tariffs, and, ultimately the World Trade Organization. Developing countries, most just emerging from colonial
rule, borrowed heavily to promote economic development, although a large share of that money was siphoned off by
corruption or simply reinvested in wealthy countries (see Boyce and Ndikumana 2011). One consequence was that it left
many developing countries with debt levels impossible to pay and, as a consequence, growing food insecurity and a
Debt/Insecurity Cycle (see Figure 6.19).
Figure 6.1 The Debt/Food Insecurity Cycle
DEBT
Food
Insecurity
Structural
Adjustment
Financial
Speculation
Adverse
Trade Rules
Until the so-called Third World Debt Crisis, developing countries were able to insulate their farmers from competition from
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Until the so-called Third World Debt Crisis, developing countries were able to insulate their farmers from competition from
the highly subsidized agriculture of the United States and Europe by imposing tariffs on their products. But, in order to
secure relief from their debts, they had to agree to loan conditions imposed by the World Bank and IMF. These conditions, or
structural adjustment programs, consisted of a package of neoliberal reforms that included lowering tariffs, eliminating non-
tariff import barriers, and slashing government subsidies to the agricultural sector that included input subsidies (e.g.,
fertilizers, pesticides), marketing assistance, social safety nets, and agricultural research and education (Gonzalez 2015).
However U.S. and European agricultural producers still received substantial subsidies, including lower fuel prices and lower
interest rates on loans.
As a consequence of these imposed trade rules, resource-poor local farmers came into direct competition with subsidized
agricultural producers in the United States and Europe and the influx of cheap, imported foods devastated local food
production pushing more and more farmers into urban slums. In addition, IMF monitored programs promoted agricultural
exports to service foreign debts. This diverted local land from food crop to cash crop production greatly reducing food self-
sufficiency and increasing dependence on food imports.
To make matters worse, foreign speculators began to buy up more and more land in developing countries to meet a demand
for more biofuels, or simply to speculate on land values. Some middle-income countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
China, India, and South Korea invested in land to protect their access to food supplies or because of domestic shortages of
arable land and irrigation water (Gonzalez 2015:71). The rise in land prices further contributed to pricing local farmers out of
the market, and forcing more into urban areas.
Finally, the cost of repaying debts to banks and investors required countries to remove support for other food and health
related programs.
In sum, we need to understand the economic, political, and social relations that connect people to food. Economist
Amartya Sen (1990:374) suggested that people command food through entitlements – that is, their socially defined rights to
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Amartya Sen (1990:374) suggested that people command food through entitlements-that is, their socially defined righí
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food resources. Entitlement might consist of the inheritance or purchase of land on which to grow food, employment to
obtain wages with which to buy food, sociopolitical rights such as the religious or moral obligation of some to see that
others have food, or state-run welfare or social security programs that guarantee adequate food to all. Not all of these kinds
of entitlements exist in all societies, but some exist in all. From this perspective, hunger is a failure of entitlement. The failure
of entitlement may come from land dispossession, unemployment, high food prices, or lack, suspension or collapse of
state-run food security programs, but the results are that people may starve to death in the midst of a food surplus.
Viewing hunger as a failure of entitlements also corrects ideological biases in the culture of capitalism, the tendency to
overemphasize fast growth and production, the neglect of the problem of distribution, and hostility to government
intervention in food distribution. Thus, rather than seeing hunger or famine as a failure of production (which it seems not to
be), we can focus on a failure of distribution (see Vaughn 1987:158). Furthermore, we are able to appreciate the range of
possible solutions to hunger. The goal is simply to establish, reestablish, or protect entitlements, the legitimate claim to food.
Seeing hunger as a failure of entitlement also focuses on the kinds of public actions that are possible. For example, access
to education and health care are seen in most core countries as basic entitlements that should be supplied by the state, not
by a person’s ability to pay. And most core countries see basic nutrition as a state-guaranteed entitlement, in spite of recent
attempts in countries such as the United States to cut back on these entitlements. Thus, by speaking of entitlements, we
can focus on the importance of public action in dealing with world hunger.
To understand the range of solutions to hunger, we also need to distinguish between the more publicized instances of
famine, generally caused by war, government miscalculations, civil conflict, or climatic disruptions; food poverty, in which a
particular household cannot obtain sufficient food to meet the dietary requirements of its members; and food deprivation, in
which individuals within the household do not get adequate dietary intake (Sen 1990:374).
To illustrate, let’s take a look at two situations of hunger: first, the more publicized instance of famine and then the less
widely publicized endemic hunger.
The Anatomy of Famine
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An image inal emergea rom ne ramine in Somalla in 1992.
179 Source: Bernard Bisson/Sygma/Getty Images
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Many historic famines were caused by crop failures, climatic disruptions, and war. Archaeologists have speculated that
widespread climatic changes reduced the yields of Mayan agriculturists and resulted in the destruction of Mayan civilization.
Yet it is clear that, even historically, famines resulted from entitlement failures rather than insufficient food (Newman 1990).
Even during the Irish potato famine of 1846–1847, when one-eighth of the population starved to death, shiploads of food,
often protected from starving Irish by armed guards, sailed down the Shannon River, bound for English ports and consumers
who could pay for it.
We can better appreciate the dynamics of famine and the importance of entitlements by examining a famine crisis in the
African country of Malawi in 1949. It was by no means the most serious famine in Africa in the past sixty years, but Megan
Vaughn (1987), in her analysis of it, provides answers to the key questions, Who starves and why?
The famine began with a drought. The lack of rain was first noticed after Christmas 1948 and drew serious attention when in
January, normally the wettest month of the year, there was no rain at all; it remained dry until some rain fell in March. In
some areas the first and second plantings of maize, the main food crop, failed completely, and wild pigs, baboons, and
hippos devastated the remaining crops. Old people who remembered the last famine in 1922 said there were signs of a
major crisis, and within a few months it was apparent that people were starving. The British colonial government began to
organize relief efforts, sending agricultural representatives into the countryside to organize the planting of root crops,
replanting of crops that failed, and opening food distribution camps. By the time the rains came in October, there were
reports of real malnutrition and of hundreds of children and adults starving to death. Many died, ironically, at the beginning
of 1950 as the maize crop was being harvested, many from eating the crop before it ripened (Vaughn 1987:48).
DEM.
REP.
TANZANIA
OF THE
CONGO
MALAWI
COMOROS
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179 According to Vaughn, women suffered most from the famine. The question is, What happened to women’s food entitlem
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that resulted in their being the most severely affected? To answer this question, we need to know a little about food
production, the role of kinship in Malawi life, and the changing role of women in African economies.
Malawi at the time was under British control; agriculture was divided between cash crop agriculture-tobacco was the most
important crop-and subsistence agriculture, the growing of such crops as maize, sorghum, and a few root vegetables. In
addition, many people worked at wage labor, either in the formal employment sector, for European or Indian farmers or
merchants, or the government, or in the informal employment sector, working on farms owned or worked by Africans. Cash
could also be earned through migrant labor, almost exclusively a male domain, although women could earn money
producing and selling beer or liquor.
The predominant form of kinship structure was matrilineal—that is, people traced relations in the female line. The most
important kin tie was between brother and sister, and the basic social unit was a group of sisters headed by a brother. Under
this system, rights to land were passed through women, men gaining rights to land only through marriage. Traditionally,
women would work their land with their husbands, who lived with them and their children. In this system, a woman’s
entitlement to food could come from various sources: her control of land and the food grown on it, sharing of food with
matrilineal kin, wages she might earn selling beer or liquor or working occasionally for African farmers, or wages her
husband or children might earn. In addition, during the famine, the government established an emergency food distribution
system from which women could theoretically obtain food. What happened to those entitlements when the crops failed?
Changes in the agricultural economy and the introduction of wage labor under European colonial rule had already
undermined women’s entitlements (Boserup 1970). The British colonial government was under pressure, as it was in other
parts of Africa, to produce revenue to pay the cost of maintaining the colonies. Consequently, they introduced cash crops
such as coffee, tea, cotton, and tobacco. The latter proved to be the most profitable in Malawi and was the major cash crop
when the famine struck. But cash cropping was generally a male prerogative and provided wages for African men only when
they worked for Europeans or Indians. Cash cropping by Europeans and Indians also took land that might have been used
for food crops, contributing to a growing land shortage for Africans. Thus, in addition to providing new ways for men to gain
economic power, European practices led to the decrease of women’s power in the agricultural sector. This combination of
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高口
changes in access to land, decreasing amounts of land available for Africans, and the growing importance of wage labor for
2 180
men made women more dependent on men for their food entitlements when the famine struck.
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C
When the famine became evident to the British authorities, they took measures that further reduced women’s entitlements.
First, partly to conserve grain and partly because of a fear of social disorder, they forbade the production and sale of beer,
removing a major source of income for women. Next, they assumed the family unit consisted of a husband, wife, and
children, presided over by the husband, and, consequently, refused to distribute food relief to married women, assuming
they would obtain food from their husbands. However, many husbands were traveling to seek work elsewhere to buy food,
and they might or might not send food or money home. Next, the government food distributions gave preference to those,
mostly urban people, who were employed in the formal economy by Europeans, Indians, or the government, neglecting
those in the rural economy such as part-time women laborers. Furthermore, Europeans and Indians, who had ample food
supplies during the famine, often shared with their workers who, again, were mostly men. Many of these men, of course,
were conscientious husbands, fathers, brothers, and uncles and shared the food they received. But some did not, either
keeping it for themselves or selling it at high prices on the black market.
To make matters worse, as the famine wore on, social units began to fragment. This is a common feature of famines.
Raymond Firth (1959) reported that during the early phases of a famine on the island of Tikopia, families recognized
extended kin ties in the sharing of food, but as the famine wore on, food was shared only within individual households. In
Malawi, the situation was even worse; at the beginning of the famine, there seems to have been sharing within the main
matrilineal kin group, but as it wore on, the sharing unit became smaller and smaller until people ate secretly. Because one
of a woman’s entitlements consisted of food received from relatives, this would have further reduced the amount of food she
received. Finally, divorce rates apparently increased significantly, particularly in families where the husband was a migrant
laborer, further isolating women and reducing their food entitlements.
In sum, then, the most vulnerable portions of the population included women without male support but for whom the
colonial authorities took no responsibility, married women whose husbands had abandoned them, and wives of long-term
migrants who did not remit money (Vaughn 1987:147). In addition, of course, the children of these women suffered and died
disproportionately.
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