Mitos Pangan, by Alfajri

“The Myth-Scarcity, The Reality There is enough food” an article taken from internet (6.17.2007) by Food First and Development Policy is mainly discusses the the cause of hunger and how to deal with this problem in some of the third world countries. The main caused of the hunger are misused, degradation of resource and rapid population growth. this article concluded that If the potential resources can be empowered effectively, famine problems can be overcome and the myth is scarcity only.

It was found by a study which was done by The American Association for the advancement of Science (AAAS) that “78% of all malnourished children under five in the developing world live in countries with food surplus”. The Food and Agricultural Organization of The United Nations (FAO) reported that every region which gains in food production has kept the population growth ahead except Africa since 1950.

It was clear that many nations do not realize their potential resources to fulfill their food production and even most “hungry countries have enough food for all their people now”. What makes the problem emerge is when the countries which mostly face the famine complication do much more import than what they export, whereas the rich countries import more food than export. The rich countries purchase 71.2 percent for the food whereas the “30 lowest income countries” only export “5.2 percent of all international commerce in food and farm commodities”.

We can have a look at some countries below where hunger is not caused by scarcity.
India and Brazil.
There were 200 millions of India population go hungry. On the contrary, India exported “$625 million worth of wheat and flour, and $1.3 billion worth of rice which both kind of the food is main staple in India”. Brazil exported “more than $13 billion worth of food in 1994 (second among the third countries” where at the same time there were “70 millions of brazilian can not afford enough food to eat”.

Bangladesh
This country is as a symbol of world famine in 1970s. Yet it was the yearly under-reported by the Bangladesh’s official reported that Bangladesh could provide 2,000 calories each day for everybody with small amount of food as addition. Bangladesh has not cultivate the rich alluvial soil and the large amount of water supply which were blessed in that country land. It was predicted by experts that It could double or even triple the food production if the potential irrigation is used effectively.

Africa
It was a surprise, the Sub Saharan of Africa countries where “213 millions chronically” remained as food net exporter countries in 1994. “In fact the author of AAAS report referred to earlier, argues that despite inaccurate statistic and misleading media imaginary, hunger is actually less severe in sub Saharan countries than in South Asia”.

Theoretically, Africa can produce 25 to 35% higher than maximum potential production in Europe or North America in the grains yield if the potential land has been utilized in appropriately. It is only 10% of the potential land which is cultivated non-professionally in Chad. Mali, Sudan,Ethiopia, Somalia where most famine happened, the potential land only used in a few scale.

“Many long-time Africa’s observers stated that “Africa’s food potential has been distorted and thwarted”. Here are the causes of acute famine in Africa:
the colonial notion that continue in the modern era which pattern the people paradigm that good land is dedicated for cash production, export and the inhabitant were directed to utilize the marginal land. Furthermore, the national and international agencies have discredited peasant producers’ often sophisticated knowledge of ecologically appropriate farming system.
Public Resources, research and credit of agricultural have been spent on export crops
Domination of men over women who work to produce food crop. This preferential means that cash crop is given more treatment compare to food crops.
Aid policy is controlled by elites who have export oriented. even though the government try to overvalued their currencies, the free trade policy has drifted away this solution.
Multinational Corporation advertisement has changed the taste pattern of African by saying that “He will be smart. He will go far, He will eat bread”. Thirty years ago, only a few of African eat bread, but nowadays many African eat bread which third of total amount is imported.

By owning today’s large amount of food supplies and also the potential of land which has not been utilize effectively, this article concluded that the scarcity myth can be thrown away. Indeed, there is hunger in reality but not scarcity.


Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_Secrets_Lies/Myht_FoodScarcity.html