Feed the hungry with information

-- Patty Gavnik, editor

The United States is home to six percent of the world’s population and we consume 35-45 percent of the world’s resources. Can Americans move beyond guilt to become part of the solution?

Most Americans mistakenly believe that human hunger is caused by three problems: scarcity of food, natural disaster, and growing world population. According to Daniel Abebe, Ph.D., First College dean, what most people know about world hunger is based on myth. And until ignorance is replaced by information, world hunger will persist despite the fact that there is currently enough food to feed every man, woman and child on the planet 3,500 calories a day.

At a Think Again workshop sponsored by First College on Nov. 18, Abebe explained to alumni, students, faculty and staff that educating people about world hunger must change before solutions can be sought.

Most people mistakenly believe that sending money to countries plagued by hunger will fix the problem, at least temporarily. But governments of developing countries often use foreign aid dollars intended for hunger relief to build military might instead of feeding hungry people. After the world became aware of the Ethiopian famine in 1985, aid from the international community poured into the country, but according to Abebe, most of this money was used to buy military trucks, fuel, weapons and supplies for the Ethiopian military.

It is not only the governments of developing nations that spend to support military might in lieu of humanitarian aid. In 1986, the U.S. government pledged $16 million in foreign aid. $14 million of that money was used for security-related items like machine guns, tanks and intelligence.

Harmful misconceptions don’t just exist in regions that enjoy affluence; they also persist in the very countries that suffer most from hunger. Abebe was born and raised in Ethiopia, but he said, “I never even knew hunger existed there.” Like many middle class Ethiopians, the Abebe family lived in a gated community, and during the famine of 1985, hunger existed only in isolated pockets of the country. Instead of reaching out to its starving rural communities, the Ethiopian government hid the problem, even from its own people.

To many Americans, Ethiopia will always be synonymous with starvation, but by African standards the internationally infamous country is an economic success. Ethiopia leads the world in coffee exports. Despite profits, this cash crop jeopardizes the people that are already at risk of malnutrition. Farmers who once eked out enough food for their families on small parcels of land are being pushed off in order to increase coffee production.

Governments all over the world make similar political decisions, and they impact the availability of food than more any other factor. According to Abebe, it is the scarcity of democracy, not the scarcity of food, which sustains world hunger. And not all democracies are created equally. Capitalist democracies do not adequately address hunger. Seventy-eight percent of people who suffer from malnutrition live in food abundant nations like the U.S. About 30 million people in the United States cannot afford a healthy diet. This occurs in a nation where growing numbers of people are dying because they over consume.

Abebe’s discussion was held to help students better understand the world situation so they can make a difference by choosing careers based on the good that can be done, consciously choosing where they spend money, and supporting sustainable environmental companies. Think Again workshops are held monthly as a lifelong learning opportunity for alumni, students and staff. Upcoming discussions will include the Minnesota civil rights movement, the threat of the beauty myth, and travel to Spain.

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