Group10_A | SDG 2: Zero Hunger
How do we starve global hunger?
Authored by: Aniket Biswas Burman BJ20007, Anugrah Agnihotri BJ20009, Nandana Varshney BJ20030, Nandu Krishnan A BJ20031, Praveen Kumar BJ20037, Rudrani Bose BJ20043
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the bedrocks upon which the sustainability of future generations depends. “Achieving Zero Hunger by 2030” is one such initiative that comes under the purview of global SDGs. Here’s a hypothetical scenario, imagine one fine morning you wake up hungry and look for food in your home. After tirelessly searching, you decide to grab some food from outside but don’t have any money in your wallet, not even in your home. Your stomach is growling with hunger, and adding to your horror, even your family can’t provide you with meals. A very dark hypothetical scenario. Isn’t it? Unfortunately, this is the harsh reality for many. In 2019, 8.9% of the world’s population tantamount to 690 million people, went to bed empty stomach. More than 2 billion suffer from malnutrition, which is a by-product of not having nutritious food, and every 10 seconds, a child dies because of extreme hunger. The adverse effects of hunger are more felt in developing countries than the developed ones. Countries like Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Congo, Pakistan, Tajikistan, India, etc., are grappling with this issue. “Hunger” mainly results when the economic and political ecosystem of a country shatters. Although hunger affects all age groups, children face the biggest brunt of it. UN estimates 13% of the population in developing countries suffers from chronic food shortage. We have the resources to feed the world population properly, but lack of effective utilization and mindset act as a barrier. UNDP’s SDG-2 “Zero Hunger” aims to eradicate all forms of hunger and malnutrition from the world by 2030, resulting in food security and good quality of life for all. This goal can only be achieved through modifying policy frameworks at local, domestic, and international levels and through the effective collaboration of societies at large.
Figure 1: Annual Hunger Map depicting the scale and spread of chronic hunger worldwide (Source: https://www.wfp.org/publications/hunger-map-2020)
How widespread is the problem in India?
Every year, the NITI Aayog releases the Sustainable Development Goals Index to monitor India’s performance in meeting the SDGs. In the 2019-20 Index6, although India had improved its score from 2018, performance had declined in several goals. The country was the worst off in SDG 2, with the score falling drastically, from 48 to 38. The relevance of SDG 2 to India can be gauged from the reason behind the country’s performance in such indices. As many as 25 states and UTs failed to address hunger and malnutrition, with Jharkhand at the bottom, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. While 15% of the population of south Asia is undernourished7, in the Global Hunger Index 20208, India with a child stunting and wasting rate of 37.4% and 17.3%, a 3.7% child mortality rate, ranked 94 out of 107 countries, lower than Bangladesh (75) and Pakistan (88).
Several government schemes have been initiated to deal with hunger9. The National Food Security Act,2013 addresses availability, accessibility and affordability of food, while the Integrated Child Development Services covers the nutritional security of children under the age of 6, pregnant and lactating women(Refer Figure 4 for details). The inter-relatedness of the SDG’s ensures that fulfilling the targets of one goal requires fulfilling other goals too, and the National Program of Mid-Day Meals in Schools seeks to provide well-balanced meals to school going children while reducing dropout rates, under SDG 4 (Quality Education). Similarly, the Antyodaya Anna Yojana, covers both SDG1(No Poverty) and 2, providing families with less than Rs 250 per capita per month, with 35kg of rice at a subsidized rate.
Despite the declining contribution of agriculture to the economy, India continues to be a key global agricultural producer. Climate change, environmental degradation and weather-disasters cause agrarian distress, hampering food security. The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture10 seeks to promote agricultural growth through conservation and sustainable use of scarce natural resources. As the country with the largest population of food insecure people11, special efforts across all the SDGs are required to end hunger in India. A hungry country is a country incapable of taking advantage of its demographic dividend and realizing its dream of economic growth.
Figure 2: The fight to end hunger is both global and domestic. (Source: Economic Times and UN report on SDGs)
Analysis: Hunger is not a food production issue (mostly). It is a logistical issue.
It may be surprising to note that the world currently produces more than enough food to feed 10 billion mouths (the current world population is at 7.5 billion for reference)12. This is in addition to the food produced for livestock and biofuels. And for the first time in the history of mankind, obesity caused by consuming too many calories has become an epidemic. This begs the question, why then do 1 in 9 people go hungry each day? The answer is deceivingly simple - lack of access to affordable and nutritious food.
The causes of world hunger can be attributed to the following:
Poverty - Hunger is principally caused by poverty. People living below the poverty line lack regular access to food and even when they do, it is not always nutritious. Cruelly enough, the cause of poverty can be hunger itself, causing a vicious cycle to take place. In Congo, one of the world’s poorest and hungriest countries, majority of the population survives on less than $1.25 a day.13
Conflicts and political instability - Frequent conflicts in strife-torn regions see large scale migration and abandonment by farmers. This leads to crop failure and consequently hunger and malnutrition. It is no surprise then that 60% of the worlds hungriest live in conflict zones such as South Sudan and Yemen.14
Natural disasters and climate change - Disturbances in weather patterns such as El Nino led to lower rainfall and droughts. On the other end of the spectrum, cyclones and excessive rainfall too can wreak havoc on the agricultural output. This problem is accentuated when a country is ill-prepared to tackle such unforeseen disasters.
Public policy and mismanagement - Like many other problems, hunger too can be attributed to misgovernance or political instability. Poor infrastructure and a faulty public distribution system have contributed to hunger in several countries of Asia and Africa. Free and subsidized grain meant for the poor are often siphoned away and sold by corrupt officials.
Wastage of food - Over one-third of all the food produced never gets consumed! What makes this worse is that the process of producing this food generates effluents and uses up precious resources. The United States has the dubious distinction of wasting the most amount of food annually - a whopping 80 billion lbs.14
Figure 3: Hunger in India – Some Statistics (Source: https://www.delhifoodbanking.org/hunger-in-india-sdg2/)
Business Implications
India is one of the only countries where there is a rule mandating corporate to guide funds to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, due to which we see many business giants taking initiatives (development and funding) related to SDGs and specifically goal number two -Zero Hunger. Around 60% of India’s population is directly or indirectly involved with agriculture activities. So companies and the governments have concentrated on improving the efficiency in the sector.
The recent COVID-19 imposed lockdown aggravated the dilapidated situation in the country. With the supply chain wholly disrupted within the country, many companies came forward and ensured the supply of essentials to society’s underprivileged sections. ITC provided funds amounting to Rs 150 crores for channelizing resources to the ground forces who worked tirelessly during the lockdown period. ITC was one of the first companies that promoted agriculture through the e-Choupal ecosystem that made real-time information about weather conditions and price statistics to improve its efficiency. The initiative ensured the access of this information to the customers in the vernacular language. The mid-day meal program initiated by the government of Kerala ensures that all the children attending government schools shall receive the mid-day meal. The Government of India has implemented the initiative in almost all the government schools across the country. Around 120 million children in 1.2 million schools are benefitted from the scheme.
Akshaya Patra operates a similar scheme and had started even before the national government began the initiative. It caters to the needs of almost 1.8 million today. Several companies like BCG supports the Akshaya Patra. A popular NGO ‘Feeding India’ joined hands with Zomato on World Food Day in 2019 for a five-day campaign to empower citizens to tackle the challenge of hunger. The campaign received attention on social media through the hashtag #IamFeedingIndia. Around 250 restaurants collaborated for the program across 80 cities.
Bajaj Finserv has partnered multiple NGOs in India to eradicate hunger, poverty and malnutrition, that impact children. With the partnership, it has launched the #StrikeOutChampionship campaign to help spread awareness among people on healthcare issues affecting children in India
To develop a new solution, and to explore how it might help nations to address other severe problems such as a lack of access to health care, BCG worked with the government of Tanzania and the World Food Programme (WFP) to implement BCG’s Smart Simplicity approach.
Amazon is a company that is highly focused on achieving SDG goals. It had tie-ups with an international NGO, No kid hungry, initiating the Breakfast after bell, which ensures over 9 million Breakfast to over 50,000 students across 450 schools in a year in the US. The initiative started in 2017 and has achieved tremendous support from various organizations. Initiatives like this can be extended to India.
Several companies have pledged their resources to end world hunger and have initiated several campaigns in our country. Nestle’s Ending Hidden hunger worked with several governments and helped supply essentials to the poor population. Amul has developed a therapeutic food explicitly aimed at fighting malnutrition in several corners of the country. The Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) plant has been approved by UNICEF and works on a non-commercial model. It ensures supply to several African countries also. Food is one of the essential needs of human beings. Even though there is enough food to feed the entire world population, around a tenth of us suffers from malnutrition. In short, corporates should adopt empowerment measures to reduce food wastage and improve agricultural output. Companies should focus on a long-term continuous process that shall benefit the underprivileged and all the stakeholders involved. Business models like that of Amul have set an impeccable example in front of us.
The Way Ahead
Figure 4: India's mission can be broken down into 13 schemes in a bid to to end hunger by 2030 (Source: https://www.facebook.com/MEAINDIA/photos/zero-hunger-sdgsindia-aims-to-achieve-food-security-improved-nutrition-and-promo/1331409613547500/)
“Hunger isn’t caused by a scarcity of food, but a scarcity of democracy.” – Frances Moore
As eternal optimists, we are confident that the issue of world hunger can be resolved (and in that process, we’ll also be solving the problems of poverty, corruption, patriarchy and some more).
Small steps - Something as small as providing access to a bicycle can bring a family out of dire poverty and hunger (also known as the ‘Bicycle poverty reduction’ program in Sri Lanka and Uganda).15 Similarly, at an individual level, if we take tiny steps to reduce our food wastage and procure only what we need, we’ll be leaving a larger share of the pie (metaphorically) for others.
Innovations in agriculture - The Green Revolution showed us that it is possible to produce more from the same land if we resort to using better crop varieties and mechanization. Smarter irrigation techniques such as drip irrigation coupled with sustainable practice such as organic farming is the way forward to increase our production manifold.
Dietary changes - As countries prosper, they tend to consume more meat. The meat provides fewer calories than that required via grains to feed and raise the livestock. Not only is this suboptimal utilization of resources, but it is also a major contributor to the greenhouse gases (methane!). It then makes sense to shift to a greener or meat-substitute diet. ‘Superfoods’ such as Moringa (drumstick) that are easy to grow and dense with nutrition can alleviate hunger problems in Asia and Africa.
Better public policy and governance - The Gujarat Public Distribution System, which uses technology such as biometrics and barcodes, is a shining example of how good governance can improve food shortage issues in a country marred by misgovernance and corruption.16 Amartya Sen propounded the theory that famine and lack of democracy are correlated. Ethiopia, despite facing yet another famine, is no longer seeing widespread hunger, all because of political stability after years of conflict.
igure 5: Anja Ringgren Lovven, an aid worker, giving a bottle of water to a thirsty child who was abandoned. She later adopted the child and provided better facilities for him. The two pictures were taken 1 year apart. She has shown together we can starve out world hunger. (Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/one-year-later-nigerian-witch-boy-healthy-headed-to-school/)
References:
9. https://niti.gov.in/writereaddata/files/National%20Consultation%20on%20SDG-2_Concept%20Note%20.pdf
11. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/more-evidence-of-indias-food-insecurity/article32424037.ece
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