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What Causes Hunger?

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Re: What Causes Hunger?

#21

Post by hughlomas »

kephra wrote: post #8

I'm missing some points: - Land grabs: Big investors buy agriculture land to produce cash crops for export, e.g soy beans to feed pigs. - Colonial past: Most land in 3rd world countries is owned by a few rich people. E.g. Namibia was a hunger country before 1990, but is now one of the biggest meat exporters after a successful land reform. - Frankenfood: Monsanto and other big seed companies destroying the ability of…

I was intrigued by your statements and looked up some information on them. "Forcing them to buy hybrid seeds" appears to be a baseless statement. Apparently "Order 81" by Paul Bremer institutes certain patent laws regarding plant seeds, however as noted in a clarification in the following article "The law does not prohibit Iraqi farmers from using or saving 'traditional' seeds." (http://www.grain.org/article/entries/150-iraq-s-new-patent-l...) You can read the actual language of Order 81 at http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_..., which was linked as a citation in the grain.org article.

I can't find anything relating to "forbidding people to sell traditional food on the market" either.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#22

Post by mullingitover »

jacalata wrote: post #20
mullingitover wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to correct myself: s/overpopulation/high birth rates/g Look at a map showing the countries with the highest birth rates, and overlay it with a map showing the countries with the highest rates of hunger. You won't find a lot of difference between the two.

You're making a pretty classic correlation/causation error here. I'm pretty sure that high child mortality and low economic prospects (e.g; conditions where many people are hungry) are considered to cause high birthrates, as the parents attempt to maximise their chances of having some offspring to look after them in their old age.

The cause of the hunger is the simple problem of too many mouths to feed. The cause of too many mouths to feed is that infant mortality drops precipitously with the introduction of modern medicine, while family planning is a foreign concept or worse, actively demonized by the very missionaries who bring the aforementioned modern medicine.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#23

Post by kephra »

crusso wrote: post #3

Sorry to say it, but that list doesn't include the most obvious cause of hunger. _People who reproduce when they don't have a reasonable expectation of feeding their offspring._ It seems like a whole class of possible solutions to the problem of hunger are ignored with such a tunnel vision approach to the problem.

Its natural human behavior, that the wealthy middle class people have only few children and invest in their education, while the poor have lots of children, in the hope two of them survive long enough to feed their parents, once they retire.

The only solution to this problem is fighting poverty, and educating women.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#24

Post by DanBC »

lnanek2 wrote: post #17
DanBC wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have children with the expectation of being able to feed them, and then things change. You claim it's the most obvious cause of hunger, but do you have anything to support that claim?

That seems wildly unlikely to me. Most people have kids. That's it. They sure as hell don't plan them out and make sure they will be able to provide for them. What's next, do you think most people plan out and save for their retirement too? Why do you think we need a social security program instead of just letting people expect to be able to retire? Answer: people don't.

> They sure as hell don't plan them out and make sure they will be able to provide for them.

But they don't start from a position of being dirt poor, in a situation where they don't have land to farm.

They start with having land, and seed, and health. And then HIV/AIDS kills the family, removing a generation, leaving young children and grandparents to farm. Or there's a drought, lasting five years, destroying crops. Or there's a flood, destroying livestock. Or their main crop (eg Quinoa) becomes fashionable, driving up prices, leaving them without food.

The sentence I'm responding to is: _People who reproduce when they don't have a reasonable expectation of feeding their offspring._ but actually people are successful farmers who's life changes after multiple, year on year, disaster.

http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=94947

That article gives a pretty good overview of the multiple events that cripple farmers.

See also the slide show "Too Poor To Farm" http://www.irinnews.org/photo/?id=43

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#25

Post by [deleted] »

mullingitover wrote: post #15
crusso wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you roll back the calendar, when in human history has lower population meant less per-capita hunger in the world?

Allow me to correct myself: s/overpopulation/high birth rates/g Look at a map showing the countries with the highest birth rates, and overlay it with a map showing the countries with the highest rates of hunger. You won't find a lot of difference between the two.

[deleted]

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#26

Post by jk4930 »

kephra wrote: post #23
crusso wrote: post #3

Sorry to say it, but that list doesn't include the most obvious cause of hunger. _People who reproduce when they don't have a reasonable expectation of feeding their offspring._ It seems like a whole class of possible solutions to the problem of hunger are ignored with such a tunnel vision approach to the problem.

Its natural human behavior, that the wealthy middle class people have only few children and invest in their education, while the poor have lots of children, in the hope two of them survive long enough to feed their parents, once they retire. The only solution to this problem is fighting poverty, and educating women.

>natural human behavior, that the wealthy people have only few children

It's a socioeconomic phenomenon of the Industrial Age's middle class, the upper class continue to multiply like in the good old times, having 3 to 6 kids is not uncommon.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#27

Post by kephra »

jk4930 wrote: post #26
kephra wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its natural human behavior, that the wealthy middle class people have only few children and invest in their education, while the poor have lots of children, in the hope two of them survive long enough to feed their parents, once they retire. The only solution to this problem is fighting poverty, and educating women.

>natural human behavior, that the wealthy people have only few children It's a socioeconomic phenomenon of the Industrial Age's middle class, the upper class continue to multiply like in the good old times, having 3 to 6 kids is not uncommon.

Sorry, thats not limited to industrial age, Ancient Greek, Rome and Babylon had the same problem.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#28

Post by jk4930 »

kephra wrote: post #27
jk4930 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>natural human behavior, that the wealthy people have only few children It's a socioeconomic phenomenon of the Industrial Age's middle class, the upper class continue to multiply like in the good old times, having 3 to 6 kids is not uncommon.

Sorry, thats not limited to industrial age, Ancient Greek, Rome and Babylon had the same problem.

Ancient world: fertility rates are positively correlated with prosperity. (E.g., the Roman Empire's decline of fertility rate at the end is caused by the economic troubles of the dying empire.)

Industrial Age: fertility rates (of the middle classes) are negatively correlated with prosperity.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#29

Post by crusso »

011011100 wrote: post #12
crusso wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have children with the expectation of being able to feed them See already you're off base. Someone's individual expectation is not at all necessarily a "reasonable expectation". There are lots of gamblers in Vegas who expect to win big tonight... doesn't mean their expectations are reasonable. but do you have anything to support that claim What, like statistical evidence? No. I don't have statistical evid…

"See already you're off base. Someone's individual expectation is not at all necessarily a "reasonable expectation". There are lots of gamblers in Vegas who expect to win big tonight... doesn't mean their expectations are reasonable." How should people make decisions if they can't trust their own judgment? You're going to one extreme and saying "lots of people are unreasonable". Ok, great. Lots of people are also ver…

That's just a fancy way of starting off the conversation by saying "you're wrong"

Not pointing out when someone is demonstrably wrong in a discussion is as useless and futile as pretending to want to solve poverty and hunger but not addressing the core issue.

Discussing topics like this on the Internet is already fairly useless. No sense in making it worse with a bunch of disingenuous and logically incorrect validation of opinions.

Re: What Causes Hunger?

#30

Post by crusso »

011011100 wrote: post #13
crusso wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have children with the expectation of being able to feed them See already you're off base. Someone's individual expectation is not at all necessarily a "reasonable expectation". There are lots of gamblers in Vegas who expect to win big tonight... doesn't mean their expectations are reasonable. but do you have anything to support that claim What, like statistical evidence? No. I don't have statistical evid…

"What, like statistical evidence? No. I don't have statistical evidence that my car is parked outside either, but I'll still take a chance on it by walking to the spot where I left it earlier." No, but you do have evidence by just being able to go outside and observe your car. You're not operating without reason when you go back to where you left it earlier. Your reply is written in a very condescending way. You shou…

You're not operating without reason when you go back to where you left it earlier

Just like I'm not operating without reason by pointing out that whole villages that are hungry are just making the problem worse by breeding without much restraint.

Your reply is written in a very condescending way. You should know that.

Yeah, I find it really childish to ask people for statistics as some kind of counter-attack when straightforward observations should suffice. What's your excuse for being condescending?

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