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The World Hunger Problem

World Hunger Statistics

Works Cited: http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/present/stats.htm

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-In the Asian, African and Latin American countries, well over 500 million people are living in what the World Bank has called "absolute poverty"


-Every year 15 million children die of hunger


-For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years

-Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children will die from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could be prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days!


-The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've entered this site at least 200 people have died of starvation. Over 4 million will die this year.


-One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture


-The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy


-Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF


-3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.


-In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.


-In the U.S. hunger and race are related. In 1991 46% of African-American children were chronically hungry, and 40% of Latino children were chronically hungry compared to 16% of white children.


-The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality. African-American infants die at nearly twice the rate of white infants.


-One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.


-Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.


-In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programmes in developing countries.


-Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death


-About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age


-To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.


-The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.


-Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger


-It is estimated that some 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually die from it each year.

Past

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Chinese Famine (1958 to 1961)
-The last major famine not resulting from a war
-14 to 40 million people died

The "Great Leap Foward" was an economic campaign that hoped to organize China's population to meet its industrial and agricultural problems. Man power instead of machine power was emphasized. Furnaces were built in small towns and people had to abandon their fields to run them. Agriculture was disrupted so severely that famine occured

Irish potato famine (1845 to 1851
-8 million to 5 million people

Two million acres of potato crops began to rot in 1845 due to the Phytophthora infestations. 750,000 Irish were confirmed dead and twice as many perished.
Overpopulation and the dependency on potatoes worsened the scenario.

North Korea Famine (1995 to 1998)
-5 out of 24 million people in North Korea are malnourished
- 220,000 people died of malnutrition-related illnesses between 1995 and 1998

South Wollo, Ethiopia Famine

In South Wollo, the frost destroys crops. The little amount of land the farmers have is continuously subdivided to grow more crops. Famines have occurred in the area in 1962-3 and 1972-74, this was in the days of the Emperor. Another world famous famine was in 1984-5, in which an estimated one million people died.

Ukrainain Famine (1932 to 1933)
-The result of Stalin’s forced collectivization
-6 to 7 million dead

In 1917, Ukraine declared independence. When the Bolsheviks came into power, Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Ukraine’s nationalism threatened Stalin, so Stalin created a man-made famine.

Present

Why does Starvation Exist?

There is enough food on our plant for every single person to have five pounds of food per day. The problem is it is expensive to distribute food to countries that are not arable. The land is not arable because of temperature, hard soil, or lack of water.

Sometimes, people just do not have enough money to buy food. This is when the economy is to blame. The world’s poorest countries are hundreds of billions of dollars debt, therefore the government must spend money repaying other countries.

Cultural beliefs are also to blame for hunger because they limit the progress in societies. For example, in India, women are considered lower than men in society.

What will the FUTURE bring?