PEN-L message, Malthus Was Wrong

WSJ June 25, 2004

An Indian Paradox: Bumper Harvests and Rising Hunger

The World Has Enough Food, But Poor Can't Afford It;

...The world is producing more food than ever as countries such as India, China, and Brazil emerge as forces in globla agriculture. But at the same time, the number of the world's hungry is on the rise--including in India--after falling for decades. Despite its overflowing granaries, India has more hungry people, as many as 214 million...., or one-fifth of the population.

.....Over the past 35 years, the world's food production has expanded faster than its population. In 2002, according to the United Nations World Food Program, farmers produced enough food to provide every person with 2,800 calories a day...

But inadequate infrastructure, local corruption, and rural poverty have prevent the chrocially hungry...from gaining access to bountiful harvests. After falling for decades the estimated number of undernourished in the developing world increased 18 million to 798 million between 1997 and 2001.....

....As a result [of the Green Revolution] crop yields multiplied and in recent years India's wheat production topped 70 million tons, surpassing that of the U.S......

As India's grain production grew, so did its surpluses. By 2001, the national stockpile of rice and wheat was approaching 60 million tons...India set up a distribution network to supply surplus grain at reduced prices to 180 million families.

But with inefficiency and local mismanagement plaguing distribution, it couldn't move the grain fast enough through the system...A 2002 government survey concluded that 48% of children under five years old are malnourished.

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Clearly the lack of overall development, the vast numbers trapped in archaic rural relations, in sub-subsistence agriculture, makes the problem of undernourishment intractable to capital and its ameliorating efforts.

Such are the wages of overproduction, of the uneven and combined development of capitalism...