ActionAid: Hunger is a symptom of poverty

ActionAid Ghana has petitioned government to act now to eradicate poverty and hunger in the rural communities of Ghana by living up to its obligations through respecting, protecting and fulfilling their right to food.

Speaking at the launch of a project dubbed Hunger Free Ghana by 2015, the Country Director of ActionAid Ghana, Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, noted that poverty in Ghana continues to be disproportionately a rural phenomenon, with 86 percent of the rural population poor. She said hunger is a symptom of poverty.

She said majority of the poor are rural farmers, who obtain the bulk of their livelihood from staple food production. Targeting them will be the sure way of decreasing poverty substantially and ensuring a steady elimination of hunger in the country.

According to ActionAid there are currently about 854 million people in the world who suffer chronically from hunger and it is estimated that out of this number about 815 million live in developing countries like Ghana.

Statistics from the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation, in 1996, also revealed that there were 796 million hungry people in the world and this figure rose to 815 million in 2002.

This shows an increase in the number of hungry people in the world of plenty, an indication that the progress to reduce hunger made in the 1990s has been eroded.

The above gloomy figures were captured in a research report by ActionAid. Reading excerpts of the report at the launch of Hunger Free Ghana by 2015 organised by ActionAid, Anna Antwi, a coordinator of the research team, said statistics available in Ghana indicate that poverty is highest in the three northern regions, and there is differential inequality in income-earning prospects for men and women, with many women drawing lower remuneration than men.

She said according to the Ghana Living Standard Survey 4 and Ghana Statistics Survey 2007, food crop farmers are also the poorest group in the country. Thus, a female food crop farmer, residing in a rural area of any of the three northern regions of the country, would statistically almost certainly be in extreme poverty.

The majority (about 70%) of the poor are rural farmers and they obtain the bulk of their livelihood from staple food production. Targeting them will be a sure way of decreasing poverty substantially and ensuring a move towards eliminating the level of hunger reduction, and this in turn is necessary for the accelerating national development agenda and poverty reduction especially in the rural areas of the country.

Food issues are very complex and diverse, as they include culture, religion and individual life style. Other experts indicate that there are about two billion people who suffer from what is termed "hidden hunger.”

This is characterised by an insufficient intake of vitamins and minerals causing various diseases from blindness to anaemia.

Whereas acute hunger is frequently publicised in the media with calls for action to mitigate it, chronic hunger and malnutrition are a much less known evil that affect approximately 12 million children each year.

There are another 1.2 billion people who over eat but have poorly balanced diets and end up having negative health impacts like heart diseases, obesity and death. Still many others are eating industrialised foods which also provoke various negative long-term impacts on their health.

The report recommended amongst other things that government promote food security by removing all bottlenecks on farming.

By Gilbert Boyefio