PAEDIATRIC BOOK REVIEW
CARING ABOUT HUNGER Review by Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics Ursula has a degree in dietetics, and currently works as a freelance nutrition writer. Shas been a columnist on nutrition for more than 30 years.
AUTHOR: GEORGE KENT PUBLISHER: IRENE PUBLISHING, 2016 ISBN 978-91-88061-15-7 PRICE: Paperback £36.00
“There is no technical obstacle to ending hunger. What is lacking is care,” says Professor George Kent, from the University of Hawai’i. Who could disagree with this common sense statement of the obvious? George Kent’s book shows the thousand ways we attempt to address the technical issues of world food shortage, but we actually close our eyes and shrug our shoulders to the real barriers of getting better food to the hungriest. About one billion people do not have access to enough food calories and George Kent describes this as the hunger holocaust. So many very hungry people would appear to be a natural pull factor for food markets, but tragically and obviously, food distribution systems follow the money, not the need. George even suggests that hungry populations may be of benefit to modern production systems. Something also described in 1786 by Joseph Townsend, “ . . . hunger is not only a peaceable, silent, unremitted pressure, but as the most natural motive to industry and labour, it calls forth the most powerful exertions . . .” FOOD PRODUCTION ISSUES
Food production appears skewed, with the wrong food produced in the wrong places by the wrong means and going to the wrong people. The distance between producers and consumers has grown longer, and the ‘value chain’ has inserted processers and marketeers into the very lucrative middle space, so that farmers and primary producers earn relatively less than ever before. Attempts to ramp up yields has produced astonishing outputs, but George Kent states diminishing improvements, 46
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and that ‘productionist’ policies tend to favour larger richer producers over smaller and more traditional food production systems. He specifically critiques genetic modification (GM) technologies as presenting solutions-without-problems. Cost benefits flow towards corporations rather than growers, and few of the claimed benefits appear to translate into real-world advantages over traditional technologies. Certainly the claimed motivations of feeding hungry populations ring hollow without logistic systems to support distribution, and systems to optimise nutrition rather than cash value. With a presentation of such bleakness and blackness, what can be done? Professor Kent gives detailed and useful descriptions about the many international government and NGO food agencies that attempt to alleviate hunger crises. However, he does not seem enthused or impressed with these mega programmes. Outside corrections are always modelled on top-down rather than bottom-up strategies, and welfare systems outside of food market systems seem developed to silence rather than to help the very poorest. False incentives skew food systems (not in favour of the poor), promote dependency and risk corruption. We are all tired and jaded of aspirational goals and targets announced, without the funding and monitoring needed to deliver these. The reason is, we, all of us, don’t really care.
HUNGER VIOLATES HUMAN RIGHTS
George is a passionate advocate of the concept that adequate food is a human right. Hunger violates human rights. Rights means an obligation to deliver. But this is where globally agreed statements appear pallid and pale; specifically article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and article 55 of the United Nations Charter quoted by George to support the concept, say nothing about food or hunger. Further, implementation to ensure dignity, is a nebulous shadow of a concept. India is perhaps the country that has most robustly applied food rights-based concepts, but implementation in rural areas is much critiqued, and perverse incentives inhibit aspirational changes in the poorest (to retain access to aid and subsidies). The language of ‘rights’ does not (it seems to me) help channel changes, whereas George Kent shows and pleads that systems to heighten caring may do. India demonstrates great food delivery concepts in the ‘caring’ state of Kerala, which has pioneered community food welfare systems. This book is longer and heavier on depressing evidence of continuing world hunger, and our many inept and often symbolic attempts to remedy these challenges. This book is shorter and lighter on what-to-do to address these predictable crises, and advocating caring more, seems frail. We all care about our own babies, but how can that driver of responsibility and action be extended to caring about unknown babies in faraway lands? But big problems with difficult solutions should be a much more important focus of our time and energy, than little problems with easy solutions. So dietitians, get stuck-in to joining others in addressing this issue. No other profession can more claim, ‘caring about hunger’ as its leitmotiv, and so many of the issues that George Kent describes are natural themes for dietitians to address. This book is an excellent introduction and review of the paradox of daily crisis of hunger of others, within our own environment of excess. Hopefully, a few special dietitians will lead future programmes, to address the more political and conceptual issues of caring about the very hungry. Step One: join the World Public Health Nutrition Association (www.wphna.org).
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