Hunger, a Game?

World hunger is one of the most important of the problems that humanity is facing today. Each year, approximately 60 million people die either because of malnutrition or under nutrition. The major portion of these deaths is occurring among children who are much more fragile and prone to starvation than the adults. According to the studies, a child starves to death every two seconds. I think that these people who face starvation every day of their lives should not be deprived of their most basic right of continuing their lives, whereas people in the industrialized countries take this right for granted and continue to live in a consumption based society where massive and unacceptable wasting of resources has become a way of life. Today, with the help of our advanced science and technology, we are very efficient in growing crops. As a result, the world’s crop yield, today, is greater than anytime in the history. One would think that since we have a very large amount of crop production, we should not have any problems related to lack of food resources for every person in the world. However, the hunger problem is not a result of insufficient resources but a result of unequal distribution of resources among the individuals. Somehow this could be taken as a fortunate recognition because it would mean that the resources in the world are adequate for every people to nourish themselves if the distribution problem is solved. The major portion of the distribution problem comes into the scene with our preference for using the crops in a very inefficient conversion process to produce a more expensive food: meat. Instead, we can use the crops to feed people directly and prevent a massive waste in the conversion process. When people are starving in one part of the world, a massive amount of food is consumed by livestock in other parts of the world to produce meat in a ridiculously inefficient ratio; for every pound of beef, for instance, approximately 16 pounds of grains and soybeans needed. In a more focused example, the United States of America is one of the major producers of corn, wheat, oat, soybeans and potatoes. However, the statistics show that only a small portion of the US production is consumed by people (approximately 10-20%) because the US is also one of the major producers of livestock, and the major portion of the US grain and soybeans production is eaten by livestock. Some researchers argue that if only the people in the US reduced their intake of meat by 10%, with the grain saved from the reduced feeding of livestock, all the people who face starvation each year in the world would be adequately fed .

I think that it is morally wrong to let people die because of starvation when we could eliminate our waste of resources and let everyone nourish himself or herself. I also think that every member of the earth community should have an equal right to the sharing of resources, and she or he should not wave this right to the others who think their shares should be bigger because they are better than the rest. Under the light of these facts, it is clear, in my opinion, that people have an ethical obligation toward others not only to reduce but also to eliminate the meat consumption completely so that hunger would disappear from the face of the earth forever.

Vedat YOZKAT