On Nov. 11, the United Nations Children’s Fund published a report showing that almost 200 million children under the age of five worldwide suffer from chronic malnutrition. It linked more than a third of all deaths in the age group to “undernutrition.” The report was released days before a three-day international summit on world hunger.
Earlier this year, industrially developed countries pledged a total of $22 billion to develop poor nations’ agricultural infrastructure. Only ten percent of that pledge has been made available. As long as the solution to hunger is framed in terms of aid, however, it will remain a pipe dream.
Hunger, starvation, and “food insecurity” are permanent conditions in capitalist society, and are felt particularly hard in oppressed countries. This is due not to a scarcity of food but rather to the production of food as a commodity to be sold for a profit. Planned production for people’s needs is a necessary precondition for the eradication of hunger.
