350 CHAPTER 14 Agriculture and Food Resources
World Food Problems
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
5 years old in developing countries are associated with
malnutrition (Figure 14.1e).
People who eat more food than necessary are
overnourished. Generally, a person suffering from
overnutrition has a diet high in
saturated (animal) fats, sugar,
and salt. Overnutrition, which is
most common among people in
highly developed nations such
as the United States, results in
obesity, high blood pressure,
and an increased likelihood of
disorders such as diabetes, heart disease, and some
cancers. Overnutrition is also emerging in some devel-
oping countries, particularly in urban areas, where, as
people earn more money, their diets shift from con-
sumption of cereal grains to consumption of more
livestock products and processed foods high in fat
and sugar.Population and World Hunger
According to the FAO, 66 countries are considered low
income and food deficient, which means they cannot pro-
duce enough food or afford to import enough food to feed
the entire population. South Asia, with an estimated 330
million hungry people, and sub-Saharan Africa, with an
estimated 217.5 million who are hungry, are the regions
of the world with the greatest
food insecurity. In 2010, the FAO
identified 22 countries—17 of
them in sub-Saharan Africa—as
being in a state of protracted crisis,
“those environments in which a
significant proportion of the population is acutely vulner-
able to death, disease and disruption of livelihoods over
a prolonged period of time.” Such countries commonly
experience food insecurity.
Today, sub-Saharan Africa produces less food per
person than it did in 1950. Several factors contribute to
the food shortages in Africa; these include civil wars and
military actions, HIV/AIDS (which has killed or inca-
pacitated much of the agricultural workforce in some- Differentiate between undernutrition and
overnutrition. - Define food insecurity and relate it to
human population, poverty, and world
hunger.
T
he U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) reported at the 2009 World Summit
on Food Security that at least 1 billion
people—more than three times the popula-
tion of the United States—lack the food needed for
healthy, productive lives. Most of these people live in
rural areas of the poorest developing countries (Fig-
ure 14.1a). Two-thirds of the world’s hungry live in just
seven countries—Bangladesh, China, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and
Pakistan—with 40 percent in India and China alone.
The average adult human must consume enough food
to get approximately 2600 kilocalories, or simply Calories,
per day. People who receive fewer
calories than needed are under-
nourished. Over an extended
period of undernourishment,
their health and stamina decline,
even to the point of death. World-
wide, an estimated 182 million
children under age 5 suffer from
undernutrition and are seriously
underweight, according to the World Health Organiza-
tion (WHO).
People might receive enough calories in their diets
but still be malnourished because they do not receive
enough essential nutrients, such as proteins, vitamin A,
iodine, or iron. Adults suffering from malnutrition are
more susceptible to disease and have less strength to
function productively than those who are well fed. In
addition to being more susceptible to disease, malnour-
ished children do not grow or develop normally. Because
malnutrition affects cognitive development, malnour-
ished children typically do not perform well in school.
The FAO estimates that 2 billion people worldwide suffer
from micronutrient deficiencies (Figure 14.1 b, c, d).
Also, more than half the deaths in children younger than
undernutrition
A type of malnutrition
in which undercon-
sumption of calories
or nutrients leaves
the body weakened
and susceptible to
disease.overnutrition
A type of malnutrition
in which an over-
consumption of
calories leaves the
body susceptible to
disease.food insecurity
The condition in
which people live with
chronic hunger and
malnutrition.