Some people cannot get sufficient food and result in malnutrition, when this condition continues for a period of time, we call it hunger [1]. From the definition we can conclude two key words “food deprivation” and “undernourishment”, that means hunger exist not only when people feel hungry but also when they can feed up themselves yet lack of vitamins or certain trace elements.
Statistics of hunger
There was a rise in world hunger in a row, till 2019, there were 821 million chronically undernourished people in the world [2]. Figure1 shows the number of undernourished people from year 2005 to year 2018. After decades of declining, the figure of hunger people was on a rise since 2015 and continues for over three years. Evidence available in figure also supported that the prevalence of undernourished all over the world is approaching 11 percent, which means one in every nine people cannot intake sufficient nutrition to sustain daily consumption.
In figure2, the amount of undernourished people varies in different region. The most alarming area is Africa and the circumstance getting more serious recent years, the prevalence of undernourished people in Africa is the highest, slightly blew 20%, Asia is the second place at around 10% while Latin America, Oceania, Northern America and Europe are much less.
The undernourished number of Africa is less than that in Asia in spilt of high percentage. In figure3, from the distribution of undernourished in the world we can find the number of undernourished and its living area and it is majority in Asia, more than twice of that in Africa.
What causes hunger
The existing status of affairs are mostly driven by the combined effect of separate problems. Those problems can be sum up as extreme weather and economy marginalization.
Weather
Although it has improvement in crop yield potential, the climate still affects food production. The temporal change may have negative impact on soil conditions, water available, agriculture yield and susceptibility to pest. Those temporal conditions are global warming, weather extremes, ENSO phenomenon etc. Detrimental effects on yields can be done by ENSO or other large-scale forcing factors. Sometimes simple chaotic nature can also influence crops, which result in the downturn of food production. Not all factors can directly affect food crops, crops are sensitive to temperature, decreased precipitation and flooding while other factors can only have influence on soil process, nutrient dynamics and pest organisms [6].
Economy
Where economy has slowed down, there are more likely to have undernourished. People who are hunger are the poorest one in poor groups, that is where economy and politics cannot reach, they are bystanders of the contribution of wealth. Those people exist where they do not have chance to make money apart from work as day labors and they do not have credit rating, saving or assets. It is more likely to happen in region where economy downturn. Economy and hunger will have cross impact to each other afterwards [7].
Steps of no hunger
- Put those furthest behind first
- As I mentioned above, economy growth do not have an impact on those poorest people. So the first step and most importantly is to realize the full potential of globalize economy, make special protection policy to ensure those vulnerable have opportunities in economy growth, which is equitable to others. With the improvement of poorest people’s purchasing power, there will be new job opportunities, and change this dilemma.
- Pave the road from farm to market
- The entire period from production to sale is a supply chain. To improve the efficiency of food production, one possible method is to improve the corresponding supply chain, that is the production, delivery and selling. From three aspect we can achieve this, first is to explore the market, contrary to the market to produce crops. Then build up a transport routes, set warehouse on the line of transport. The last is infrastructure in rural area, to help with a fast and standard production, as well as connect to the transport line.
- Reduce food waste
- Those food we produced every year will be wasted at one third. It is ironically that the world can produce enough food to feed itself since 1960s. the payment of rich people to their famers in one week can meet poor countries’ aid needs for a whole year. So the debate is not only about shortage of food, but food surplus among rich countries and rich people, and the cost used for storage and disposal rotted food.
- Encourage a sustainable variety of crops
- Staple crops often require large yields and stability of production, in the world, there are totally four main corps are grown, rice, wheat, crop and soy. If encounter any disaster climate, four kinds of crops are not enough to resist risk. To confront the challenge of climate change, and promote food yield, diverge range of crops should be explored. The variable of kinds of crops can Improving anti-risk capabilities and increasing food production stability. Also, diversity of crops provides communities nutrients needed for health.
- Make a nutrition a priority, starting with children’s 1000 days
- Providing children with nutrients and foods is important, especially in their first 1000 days, nutrients is essential in this period, affect the development of their physical and brain. We must ensure to nursing the mother in their pregnancy and little kid can access to the required food and nutrients [8].
Reference
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger
[2] 2019 – The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI): Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturn. https://www.wfp.org/publications/2019-state-food-security-and-nutrition-world-sofi-safeguarding-against-economic
[6] Rosenzweig Cynthia, Iglesius Ana, Yang X. B., Epstein Paul R. and Chivian Eric, “Climate change and extreme weather events – Implications for food production, plant diseases, and pests” (2001). NASA Publications. 24.
[7] James T. Morris, The Economic Impact of Hunger, Indianapolis Economic Club (2004)
[8] https://insight.wfp.org/five-steps-to-zero-hunger-e7975823a87c
IEMS5720-Social Networking-Xiong Wy 
This article clearly states worldwide status and causes of hunger as well as proposes some constructive strategies for zero hunger, making me gain a comprehensive understanding about the SDG of no hunger. Besides, it’s my first time knowing that hunger includes undernourishment by definition. I used to know there are many people living in hunger in Africa. But out of my expectation, the situation in Asia is also not optimistic. It is of great emergency to take action on ending hunger all over the world and I think the ways of food-waste reduction and a sustainable variety of crops can be the good breakthrough.
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Thanks for reading. Hunger in Asia is serious because of the large population base while the percentage of hunger in Africa is higher, so people always pay more attention to Africa when mention hunger. I also agree that hunger can only be solved with multiple efforts, more production, and less waste.
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Wow! You changed the background of the homepage! So beautiful ~
🐻’s blog2 is as logical as ever, supported by graphs and data to make your posts look more informative! Weather conditions directly affect the supply of food, and economic conditions are the root cause of widespread hunger in many areas. It is especially painful that children are malnourished due to hunger and cannot grow up well. I think what you wrote in the steps of no hunger is great, and the little thing we can do is reduce food waste to make a small contribution to this goal.
This topic makes me hungry😄， looking forward to the next meal in your home!~~~
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Glad you think the steps of no hunger is great, actually, I take the steps mentioned on the WFP website as a reference, from so many aspects we have to make efforts. Achieving no hunger is a difficult task, hope it can realize someday.
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You present this blog with a complete thought logic. Charts, status quo, causes, measures, step by step to tell me — hunger. I remember one of the pictures I saw earlier, an African children dying of hunger, it was so sad. Hunger not only exists in poor countries like Africa, but in areas such as China where the overall resources are far greater than in poor areas, the problem of hunger still exists, but it is presented in another way. Once I was teaching in Qinhuangdao, the children there used one yuan a day for meals a day, and the reality was so distressing. What can we do for this? Maybe start with every little step. The measures given in your blog are not implemented by the government or the organization, but also by everyone.
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Can’t imagine using one Yuan a day for meals, that’s really a sad story so many people suffered in hunger and poverty. Poverty and hunger have an internal connection to some extent, not only in Africa but everywhere over the world, where there is poverty, there must be hunger and undernourished. I hope one day this problem can be solved, and hope every one of us can have a chance to contribute to it.
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First of all, I suppose that you give an elaboration to “No hunger” in SDGs, from which I can understand the existing conditions and the causes behind them. I talk about “quality education” in my blog and find that the major constraints behind it are similar to that behind hunger. Obviously, the goals in SDGs are correlated and the key points to address them are exploring the common problems and tackle them. I can acquire inspirations from the last part of your blog, to propose more effective solutions!
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Poverty is always a problem to be solved, not only for the reduction of hunger, better education but also because of other issuses like health lives, better medical resources, etc. I have read your blog, I think education and hunger are similar problems to some extent, they are basic needs of society, needs more attention and has a long way to go.
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In my living environment, the lack of adequate food and clothing is no more a problem. But in the world, the problem still exist. By reading your article, I learned how to solve the hunger issue. Economy, transportation an crop cultivation are all important steps for addressing hunger. We need to thank the research of Longping Yuan and cherish our meals.
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Hahaha, I think Longping Yuan has a great contribution to crop production, helps to get rid of hunger in most areas in China, and even exports crop to other countries.
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Firstly, you let me know hunger is not just lack of food, but nutrition. Secondly, your blog includes what hunger is, how serious the hunger problem is, what causes hunger and how to solve hunger, which reminds me an old Chinese saying: The sparrow may be small but all its vital organs are there.Nice article.
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