About 60% of the world's population has a nutritional problem by
either being Undernourished or Malnourished or both at the same time.
is the world producing enough food to feed all well? what is the
problem?

Hi bangmal,

Your question addresses famine, which is a huge issue worldwide. We
see images of starving children, entire populations living on barely
sustainable nutrition, and groups warring over what little resources
are available.  While some of us sit in our comfortable homes, in
countries that are instead waging the "war on obesity," it certainly
does make us wonder why we can't feed these people.

The good news is that there is plenty of food to go around.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, that food doesn't always
reach the people who need it most.

This article from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations explains the "Food Chain" and the difficulties in getting
agricultural crops to the consumer.

AFTER THE HARVEST IS IN
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/x0262e/x0262e07.htm


Famine is often created by politics, and is not necessarily tied to
the amount of food being produced.  Wars, arbitrary political
boundaries, restriction of movement of people, agricultural
restrictions, and trade laws, can prevent people from using the land
to provide for their own subsistence or receiving food from those who
can provide it.

For a recent example, look at the difficulties we had in getting
rations to the Iraqi people while the war was going on. It was weeks
before provisions reached residents of some of the hardest hit areas.
Only because the war was short were we able to provide food to those
people in a relatively timely manner.

Now imagine countries or regions that have spent decades at war and
are steeped in corruption. Even if a beneficent organization can get
food into the country, often it doesn't get past the government
officials or the occupying military.

Additionally, with more and more people moving to the cities, the
number of people producing the food has decreased and the logistics of
moving and distributing food has become greater.
 
Some interesting perspectives on Famine are listed below ---------

 

“The traditional approach to famine analysis…proposes that famines are
primarily caused by a sudden decline in food availability. …until
Amartya Sen’s Nobel Prize winning work. …. In his studies of several
well-known historical famines, he found that famines occurred even 
when per capita food output was maintained. Hence, his ‘entitlement
approach’ focused on the distribution of food as well as its absolute
level.”

WHAT CAUSED THE GREAT CHINESE FAMINE?
http://www.res.org.uk/society/mediabriefings/pdfs/2000/january/yang3.asp

------------------------------

 
" UKRAINE, "the breadbasket of Europe" is a land famous for its
fertile black earth and its golden wheat. Yet, only forty years ago
seven million Ukrainians starved to death although no natural
catastrophe had visited the land. Forty years ago the people starved
while the Soviet Union exported butter and grain. While Moscow
banqueted, Ukraine hungered. "

BLACK FAMINE IN UKRAINE 1932-33
http://www.infoukes.com/history/famine/gregorovich/


-------------------------------


“…the United Nations estimated that as of July 1998 there were 2.6
million people at risk of starvation in Sudan…. This famine was caused
and is being perpetuated by human rights abuses by all parties to the
civil war, now in its fifteenth year. Indeed, 2.4 million of those at
risk of famine were in southern Sudan, the main arena of the war”

FAMINE IN SUDAN, 1998
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/sudan/index.htm#TopOfPage

 
 For further reading on Sudan, see the February 2003 issue of National
Geographic, "Shattered Sudan; Drilling for oil, hoping for peace."

-----------------------------


From a summary of an article on the 30-year war and famine in
Ethiopia:

"… Counterinsurgency strategies involved forcibly relocating millions
of rural people and cutting food supplies to insurgent areas. Also,
these military policies were instrumental in creating famine, and the
government used relief supplies as weapons to further its war aims…."

Evil Days: Thirty Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia
http://www.hrw.org/reports/world/ethiopia-pubs.php


----------------------------


"… much of the country [ Mozambique] plunged into the most severe
famine in living memory, both caused by and in turn aggravating
widespread violence, much of it by undisciplined soldiers from both
armies…."

MOZAMBIQUE
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/WR93/Afw-06.htm

-------------------------------


Other reports can be found here on the Human Rights Watch website:

http://www.hrw.org/

Use their search function for the word,  FAMINE.  You will find that
the first 3-4 pages of returns are articles on Sudan. If you want to
bypass those in your search use the following search terms (including
the "minus" sign):

Famine  -Sudan


Hope this added to your understanding. Thanks for your question – 
 
K~

Food produced worldwide
Famine cause
Famine Ukraine cause

---

Clarification of Answer by knowledge_seeker-ga on 17 May 2003 07:33 PDT

I meant to give you a link to the National Geographic article on
Sudan. You can't read the whole thing here (you have to buy it), but
you can read the beginning --

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - SHATTERED SUDAN
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0302/feature2/index.html

--K~

You may be interested in Master Ching Hai's views:
"...most of the wars that happen in this world are due to economic
reasons... The economic difficulties of a country become more urgent
when there is hunger, lack of food, or a lack of equal distribution of
food among different countries. If you took the time to read magazines
and research the facts about the vegetarian diet, then you would know
this very well. Raising cattle and animals for meat has caused our
economy to go bankrupt in all aspects. It has created hunger
throughout the world - at least in the Third World countries.
...You know how much protein, medicine, water supply, manpower, cars,
trucks, road construction and how many hundreds of thousands of acres
of land have been wasted before a cow is good enough for one meal.
Understand? All these things could be distributed equally to
underdeveloped countries, then we could solve the hunger problem. So
now, if a country is in need of food it probably invades the other
country just to save its own people. In the long run, this has created
a bad cause and retribution. Understand?
As you sow, so shall you reap. If we kill someone for food, we will be
killed for food later, in some other form the next time, the next
generation. It's a pity. We are so intelligent, so civilized and yet
most of us do not know the cause of why our neighboring countries are
suffering. It is because of our palates, our tastes, and our stomachs.
In order to feed and nourish one body we kill so many beings, and
starve so many fellow human beings. We aren't even talking about the
animals yet. Understand? Then this guilt, consciously or
unconsciously, will weigh down upon our conscience. It makes us suffer
from cancer, tuberculosis and other kinds of incurable diseases,
including AIDS. Ask yourself, why does your country, America, suffer
the most? It has the highest rate of cancer in the world, because the
Americans eat a lot of beef. They eat more meat than any of the other
countries. Ask yourself why the Chinese or communist countries don't
have that high a rate of cancer. They don't have as much meat.
Understand? That is what the research says, not I. Okay? Don't blame
me."
http://www.chinghai.org.tw/eng/publication/sample/english/6-7.htm