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Are the poor getting hungrier?

A number of things are to blame for the price rise — although usually only wheat, rice and soya beans are measured. In some regions it is bad weather, in particular in the Horn of Africa where there is now a famine; the rise in oil prices which has led to a rise in the price of fertilizer; the growth of bio fuels — the US now uses 40 per cent of its corn for these.

As long ago as 1974 when grain prices had just quadrupled all the nations of the world promised that by the end of the century “no child would go to bed hungry”. After a steady increase in aid for agriculture for a number of years the momentum slowed. Likewise, in developing countries, the priority that agriculture was given seemed to fade away. The work of influencing and aiding the peasantry to increase production was so much harder than urban and industrial development that it slipped down the list of priorities. If what had been decided upon then — a “doable” list of goals, according to Henry Kissinger who was the US secretary of state — had been done there would be very little hunger today and poverty would have been severely 
reduced.

Still, that is only a half of it. We don’t measure hunger very well. For decades we have assumed lower calories means more hunger. A new book, Poor Economics by Abhijit Banarjee and Esther Duflo, turns much conventional thinking on its head. Amartya Sen who won the Noble Prize for economics was dead right when he wrote that it is “a marvellously insightful book”.

“What if the poor are not eating too little food?”, they write, “What if instead they are eating the wrong kinds of food? What if the poor aren’t starving but choosing to spend their money on other priorities?”

They look at India, “one of the great puzzles in the age of food crises”. According to government statistics Indians are eating less. Per capita calorie consumption has declined. Why? Incomes are not declining, quite the reverse.

We have to look at this problem of hunger more deeply. Diarrhoea is the scourge of poorer peoples. But is has been an easy problem to solve. The simple use of salt mixed with clean water can resuscitate even bad cases. Hence there is less “leaking” of the food people eat and therefore less calorie-rich foods are sufficient. The widespread introduction of wells thanks to better boring techniques has meant that women do not have to walk very far carrying heavy loads of water, usually on their heads. Moreover, this water is purer and water-borne diseases are less. Likewise, the wider use of bicycles and, more recently, motorbikes and the steady spread of cheap bus services have cut down on walking time. Even in the poorest villages in India flour milling is now motorised. In sum, less physical energy is expended and fewer calories are needed.

The two researchers made a survey of 18 countries. They found that in the rural areas food was at the most 80 per cent of consumption, often much less. In urban areas at the most 75 per cent. Moreover, as poorer people get a bit more money they don’t spend proportionately more on more food.

The poor seem to have many choices. One of them is that if they get a little more money they switch from basic foods that traditionally have given them the best number of calories to better-tasting, more expensive ones. They also eat more meat, fish and sugar. If we want to help the poor we should encourage them to eat more fruit and vegetables and iodine-fortified salt, less wheat and rice and more coarse grains and root vegetables — such as the cheaper cassava, yams, sweet and ordinary potatoes. Then the number of ill-fed would fall even faster.

The rise in rice and wheat prices in the international market place don’t tell the whole story.

Jonathan Power is a veteran foreign 
affairs commentator based in London