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.