The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2
aims to achieve zero hunger.
The challenges within SDG 2 are to end hunger,
achieve food security, improve nutrition,
and make agriculture sustainable.
Why is achieving zero hunger so important?
As of 2019, there are over 820 million people who suffer hunger in the world
according to the Food and Agricultural Organization,
a number that has been confirmed through various indicators.
Hunger in the world originates from inaccessibility to clean, safe,
and nutritious food all year round, leading to food insecurity.
This situation is dependent upon geography and economics
and is more alarming in some countries in the world than in others.
Hi, I’m Jayashree Arcot.
I’m an associate professor from the food and health cluster
in the School of Chemical Engineering,
University of New South Wales, Sydney.
What does it mean to go hungry?
Hunger is the distress experienced
from a lack of enough energy or calories in the diet.
A minimum amount of key nutrients is necessary
to ensure maintenance of a balanced physiology
to keep us healthy and free of deficiency or illness.
These nutrients are protein, carbohydrates, fat,
vitamins, and minerals, not to forget water.
Food provides us with calories which is energy building blocks,
and with a number of physiological signaling molecules.
Chronic hunger leads to chronic undernutrition
that goes beyond just the lack of energy to lack of protein,
minerals, and vitamins causing diseases of nutritional deficiency.
Unfortunately, chronic hunger disproportionally affects
the most vulnerable sections of the population:
infants and children, pregnant and lactating mothers.
To end hunger in the world, SDG 2 relies on the following indicators:
prevalence of undernourishment;
prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity;
agricultural productivity and income for smallhold producers;
maintaining genetic diversity of both cultivated and underutilized plants;
maintaining the genetic diversity in farmed and domesticated animals;
increased investment, including through enhanced international cooperation
in rural infrastructure, agricultural research, and extension into practice;
and reducing food price anomalies.
The concept of malnutrition
includes both undernutrition and overnutrition.
The visible characteristics of undernutrition in the world are stunting,
mainly seen in children, wasting and underweight.
Of 667 million children under the age of five in the world,
159 million are too short for their age, meaning stunted;
50 million do not weight enough for their height, meaning wasted;
and 41 million are overweight or obese.
This coexistence of undernutrition and overnutrition
is known as the double burden of malnutrition.
Let us take a closer look at a case study
on the prevalence of undernutrition in a neighboring country,
Papua New Guinea.
Alarmingly, almost one in two children in Papua New Guinea
suffer from chronic undernutrition, causing stunted growth.
Papua New Guinea has the fourth highest child stunting rate in the world:
48.2 percent, a rate that is double the global average.
When dealing with such a scenario,
we’re not only dealing with a threat to child survival and development,
but a major threat to sustainable economic growth.
What is the evidence?
Numerous studies demonstrate
that if a child is undernourished during the first 1000-day period
from conception until they turn two years of age,
they’re more likely to suffer cognitive and other physical impairments
that are permanent and irreversible.
This has a roll-on effect on the child’s education and employment prospects,
leading to reduced individual earnings
which in turn translate into reduced economic productivity at a national level.
This way, undernutrition traps children in an intergenerational cycle of poverty,
meaning they live without the basic necessities of life:
food, clothing, and housing.
Little has been done in the last two decades
to tackle the problem of unnourished children in Papua New Guinea.
Undernutrition is also an effect of micronutrient deficiencies
that is vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
That can be very debilitating, a problem known as hidden hunger.
This is because the nation’s economy is not able to address
these specific issues through dedicated investments.
In addition to improving food accessibility,
governments can be helped through public private partnerships
to achieve the goals by 2030.
Partnerships with the food industry can be beneficial
where industry expertise and fortifying foods with micronutrients is available.
Staple foods such as flour
can be mandated to be fortified with the required nutrients
and made available in a form attractive to children
to eat through school meal programs.
Fortification has bene proven to be successful in other parts of the world.
The approach can be adapted in the Pacific to achieve zero hunger
along with other initiatives by the government
to establish efficient food systems such as food production,
distribution, and availability to make food secure in this region.
We often tend to think that food security and hunger
is limited to countries which lack economic resources,
however, many people in Australia
also face significant challenges in accessing nutritious food.
It is estimated that over four million Australians,
including nearly 900,000 children,
did not have reliable access to food in 2019.
People with low or no income, the homeless,
people living with disabilities or who have chronic health issues,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders,
those living in rural and remote areas,
and the elderly more frequently experience hunger
and have reduced access to nutritious food.
Poverty is at the core of all hunger.
Addressing SDG 1 will help achieve SDG 2
as well as many other SDG targets.
The problem of hunger will likely become bigger in future
due to climate change, population growth, rapid urbanization,
increasing cost of living, and increasing inequity in the world.
However, there is something you can do right here
to help those suffering from hunger.
By helping food banks, volunteering at community food gardens,
or checking in on your family, friends, and neighbors,
especially those who may be more vulnerable.
These small actions can help relieve the stress of hunger in your local community.