Is Zero Hunger Possible?

Human beings would continue to stay alive as long as they breathe either aided or naturally but many factors cycle around sustaining the existence which include quality of health and shelter but most important factors are access to clean water and food. In absence of these factors, there will be no plans neither dream for comfort, technological advancement, discoveries nor the host of researches we now invest our interest in as the “thinking being”.

World leaders in the quest to make the planet more habitable came up with a movement termed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) committed to achieving a set of eight measurable goals in the year 2000. Though, it met with a lot of challenges including world economic recession but was able to perform impressively towards achieving “halving the poverty level” in the world at the set target date, 2015.

A transition plan to integrate more people-centered sustainable agenda started in June 2012 and by July 2014, the UN general assembly open working group (OWG) proposed a document containing 17goals for approval in September 2015. Thus, MDGs transits into Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targeted to be achieved by 2030. Goal 2 is tagged ZERO HUNGER in a world where over 815 million people are hungry and by 2050, over 2 billion people are estimated to be undernourished. ¹

Kalu with his wife has six children and live in Africa, the next continent to Asia which has the hungriest people in the world making up to two-thirds of their population. Though, he is not educated but keeping himself updated with information across the globe by listening to news makes it difficult to tag him an illiterate. He has a farmland where he practices mixed farming with a distinctive partition separating the portion to sell from the one to keep his family fed. His farmland produces output throughout the year without putting pressure on the fertility of the soil, could not afford to enroll all his children in school at the same time thus, his wife took them through elementary classes from home and each got enrolled to secondary school afterward.

Proper planning, diligence, and discipline would save the world if only we all make the necessary effort required as an individual, family, society, group, NGO, or government. Applying these factors in our cultivation method, marketing, and distribution in major fields like agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Solutions to imminent danger looming can be more effective intrinsically than a vain expectation of foreign aid. For instance, despite the effect of climate change, there are still more than needed fertile soil around the world to feed its people without causing havoc to the remaining forest shielding us, especially in Africa.

Proper orientation on the techniques and modern tools needed to maximize the yield per hectare coupled with how to effectively store the farm produce for a long time remain the challenge expected of our social groups, NGOs, educational institutions and government to stand up against selflessly.

Obviously, if we keep lamenting about the rapid degradation of natural resources we depend on, it will only sink us the more into the abyss of hopelessness, it is high time we realized the challenges can be utilized as strength for a turn around to inspire thousands of rural men and women living in penury realize their real importance of being the saving measure against hunger, starvation, and famine. It is time to make urban farmers realize their importance in the workforce as a determinant of a possible future by encouraging them not to plant for income alone but practice agricultural biodiversity to reduce the loss of crop species, contribute to more nutritious diets, more resilient and sustainable farming systems.

Zero hunger is possible and can be achieved in the world in as much as people understand that, the peril that comes with hunger is a threat to everything in life. Hunger threat to a society somewhere is a threat to people everywhere.

References:

UN SDGs report