Group4_B | SDG 2: Zero Hunger: Fighting The War of World Hunger

 The UNDP and the global community have established a set of seventeen sustainable development goals in 2015 and eradicating global hunger by 2030 is positioned at number two in that list. As per current estimates around 8.9% of the world population or close to 690 million people suffer from the ill effects of hunger and malnourishment in one form or another. The alarming statistic is that one in every nine people in the world suffers from the ill effects of undernourishment. The second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 2), Zero Hunger, seeks to simultaneously address global environmental sustainability and food security challenges. 

In 2015, because of a period of sustained decline, the target of reaching zero hunger by 2030 appeared quite realistic. But according to studies, we are quite off track in achieving that target in recent times as represented below. The number of people affected by global hunger could reach up to 840 million in 2030, and up to 2 billion by 2050, if swift and immediate humanitarian and developmental action is not initiated by the superpowers of the world in unison.  

According to the Global Report on Food Crises published by the World Food Program, 135 million people are vulnerable to the effects of food insecurity with the primary drivers being economic recessions, global conflicts, locust attacks, and climate change. The aftermath of the pandemic could add an additional 130 million people to that list to further compound matters. The aim of this SDG encompasses the aim of zero hunger in all its associated forms like ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition levels, and promoting sustainable agriculture.  


The current situation in India:

The Zero Hunger campaign is very relevant for a country like India where, despite rapid economic growth and sufficient food production, a large section of society still does not have proper access to food and nutrition. The stunting rate in India is at 38%, which shows many children are not growing at the expected level according to their age. As they face difficulties in learning and have limited opportunities in employment, they are forced to live a life of poverty. Another malnutrition indicator, wasting stands at 21% which has not improved in the past years. There is a high occurrence of anemia in women aged 15 to 49 years, as 51% of women in the age group have been recorded to be anemic. It is a huge cause of concern as this leads to an intergenerational cycle of malnutrition and poverty in the long term as there is a danger of low birth weight followed by stunting or wasting. 

With increasing population, changing climate patterns, and increased burden on the ecosystem, it becomes essential to ensure proper food production. 40% of the total employment in India is in the agricultural sector, but they contribute less than 15% of the country’s GDP. Most of the farmers earn very little and find it hard to sustain themselves, but for future food requirements in India, their productivity has to be increased. The government has also taken various steps to tackle food security such as Public Distribution System, Mid-day Meals in schools, MGNREGA Act, etc. to distribute food grains on subsidy.  For achieving SDGs, India has to end hunger and malnutrition; otherwise, it will be a far-fetched dream. There is a need for a sustaining and resilient food infrastructure for building the capabilities of its community.  

Business Implications and Opportunities: 

SDG 2: Zero Hunger aims to end hunger and enable access to all the people, especially belonging to the vulnerable groups. In the past two decades, economic growth and increased agricultural productivity have contributed towards decreasing the number of undernourished people to almost half, but hunger is still a major concern for 795 million people. Ending hunger will require a consistent and dedicated effort especially in Asia and Africa- one in four individuals still go hungry in Africa. While the situation poses a grim outlook, the SDGs are also expected to present USD 12 trillion worth of market opportunities for businesses, the largest ones mentioned below:  

 

Initiatives by companies: 

Following are some of the initiatives taken by companies to eradicate hunger from society: 
  • Citibank: Citibank’s thought leadership product- Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (Citi GPS) is designed to help clients identify future themes and trends and help them navigate through the fast-changing world. According to their response to SDG 2, poverty and hunger go hand in hand, indicating that hunger is primarily driven by a lack of purchasing power. For this reason, the bank also promotes using SDGs as a guide for investment themes. Taking agriculture as a theme, a tactical ESG investor might prioritize investing in areas like sustainable food production systems, agriculture technology to invest in promising growth areas and also contributing towards ending hunger and malnutrition. 
  • Colgate Palmolive: For Colgate Palmolive, the SDG implies ending hunger, achieving food security, improving food nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture. Colgate Palmolive’s Hill’s brand offers nutrient-rich products for pets, ensuring a strong commitment towards animal health welfare globally. In the US, Hill's Disaster Relief Network donated 36,000+ pounds of pet nutritional assistance to 55+ organizations including shelters, pet food pantry partners, veterinary hospitals, and other NGOs contributing towards animal welfare. In 2009, Colgate in association with Share Our Strength launched a campaign coinciding with Mother’s Day to raise awareness about childhood hunger with the help of an online contest to support summer feeding programs in the US. 
  • Amazon: Amazon is actively committed to eradicating hunger from society through “Right Now Needs” which includes access to food, shelter, and basic goods for children and their families.  In collaboration with Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, it provided for more than 9 million school breakfasts for 50,000+ students in 450 schools across the U.S. by the end of 2019. The company also contributed a $2 million initial grant towards the creation of the Right Now Needs Fund to help with the basic and urgent needs (like food and clothing) for the students in Seattle Public Schools.  
  • RPG Group: In the wake of the global crisis caused by COVID-19, RPG Foundation contributed through its CSR initiatives towards mitigating the aftermath of the pandemic by helping the most vulnerable sections of society. The group activated their plant locations as a center for distributing meals catering to the affected migrant workers and daily wage earners. They also partnered with Godrej and BMC under the initiative called “Milkar” to launch a collaborative platform to feed communities having limited access to food supplies. Overall, they managed to distribute 5.40+ Lakh hot meals across 13 RPG plant locations and raised funds of INR 7 crore through 1800+ donors for the Milkar initiative.  
Analysis of the situation:

In understanding and analyzing the future of Zero Hunger, that is the SDG 2, we need to understand the concept of food security in linkage to geopolitics.  Geopolitics is not restricted to a particular location, but it exists across areas, globally. Such interactions and competition between various governments hamper the efforts to achieve the zero-hunger goal in addition to negatively impacting the specific frameworks that guide the efforts.  

Firstly, we need to understand what Food Security is. As defined by the United Nations’ Committee on World Food Security: “Food security, means that all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.” 

While there are many factors, price and price management are very basic factors, which can visibly and directly affect people, especially in developing countries. Hence, we try to make a discussion on that front.  

Following is a graph showing the cost of a plate of food in different countries over the world. 
The following graph shows the prevalence of undernourished people all over the world.  

Now, analyzing the two graphs, we realize that the countries that have the highest undernourished or malnourished also have a very high cost of food per plate. And as we can understand, the more these prices increase, a higher number of people will not be able to gain the food security that is required. It is pertinent to mention here that certain reports and articles state that the amount of money it would take to end world hunger ranges from around $10 billion to $ 265 billion per year. 

Here, the concept of geopolitics comes into the picture. To achieve such a humungous goal, the whole world needs to come together and fight against a common enemy, namely, hunger and malnutrition. However, this is where the problem of geopolitical competition kicks in. Recently, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2019 stated how heightened international tensions increase the risk of ‘geopolitically motivated food-supply disruptions.’ In addition to this, the concept of environment sustainability and the need to achieve it has caused ‘green grabbing’ which means competition for agricultural resources. This adversely impacts food security in countries that need it the most leading to a further decline. 

Hence, these complex geopolitical challenges will act as a hurdle to achieve the zero-hunger goal by 2030. To overcome all these negatives, we would need robust multilateral institutions that can play a vital role by aiding in norm-setting. Additionally, the development of trade frameworks can provide food security and ultimately lead to the realization of the zero-hunger goal. 

Suggested Path Ahead: 

While a part of this problem comes from a shortage of food, a major problem is the mismanagement of food storage and distribution and wastage management. 

1) To solve the problem of shortage of food, countries can look at  
  • Adopting Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA): It’s a set of practices which will allow farmers to tackle unpredictable weather conditions better and help farmers adapt. It includes using low-water sack gardens, diversifying crop varieties etc. This is especially necessary for countries that are poor and reply heavily on agriculture, like Niger for example where 80% of its land has been degraded by climate change. 
  • Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction: A few measures can be taken to mitigate potential losses in the case of a man-made or natural disaster. This includes having infrastructure designed to reduce risk like check dams, retaining walls, terraces.  
  • Increasing Social Equality and gender inclusiveness: Farming has long been seen as a male-dominated sector. In developing countries, female farmers produce more than half of the food. While women generally make up half of the workforce in agriculture, it’s in the form of hidden employment. Based on data collected by ‘Concern work’ from various countries suggests that giving women equal access to resources could increase the production levels by 20-30%. The other area where this is applicable is Female nutrition. In 2/3rd of the world's countries’ women are more likely to go hungry than men. This becomes a major concern not only for their health but also for the children they bear. 
  • Mitigating the impact of Global Conflicts: More than half of the malnourished people reside in countries that are dealing with conflict. It often ends up as a vicious cycle where scarcity of food causes violent market disruptions leading to further reduction in food availability. The major impact is felt by people who in such situations are forced to become migrants and refugees.  While to stop this work has to be done on ensuring a strong governance structure and curbing price fluctuations, other organizations can help in this. For Example, Syrian refugees were taught how to make staple cheese and yogurt and sell to the market for profit. 
2) Reducing Food Wastage and improving food distribution: 

About 1/3rd of the food produced in the world is wasted. In fact, India produces enough food to feed all of its population, while being home to 25% of the World’s hungry population 
  • Cold Chain Storage Systems: Just to see how important an efficient Cold storage system is, consider India which is the second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables but accounts for one of the biggest food loss and waste in harvest and post-harvest for these food items. The could be resolved by investing in ‘Multi-purpose Cold Storages’ which will help storage throughout the year, ‘Controlled Atmosphere Storage’ helping preserve the freshness and increasing shelf life, ‘Ripening Chambers’ and ‘Electronic Controllers’. 
  • Government Laws: While France has adopted laws to fine grocery stores that throw out edible food, this attitude should definitely be adopted by other countries especially the USA, which is the global leader in this category, nearly 40 million tons every year. Each person can help out by doing their own part by learning to store food correctly, to preserve, shop smart and save leftovers, and reducing wastage. To go a step ahead, one of the initiatives was by ‘Mumbai Dabbawallas’. Their initiative, called ‘Roti Bank’, collects leftovers from restaurants, clubs, and parties in Mumbai, stores it in vans, and distributes it to the poor before the food gets stale. Such initiatives are very important if we are to achieve the zero-hunger goal by 2030.  
Conclusion   

To summarize the discussion on eradicating global hunger and undernourishment as per the objectives of SDG 2: Zero Hunger, we conclude that the targets shouldn’t be viewed from a single lens only as most of the causes of food insecurity and hunger have their roots in poverty, inequitable distribution of wealth and disproportionate spending by the world governments on developmental initiatives. Technology like AI will also have an important role to play in ensuring the transition of agriculture to a circular food system. It could solve the problems of overproduction, overstocks, and wasting by minimizing supply-demand mismatches. Thus, every stakeholder including the national governments, the United Nations, the private Corporations and the end consumers need to play their part if the goal of reaching zero hunger globally by 2030 has to be achieved. 

References 

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