About…

Our Objective

The ambition of hungerexplained.org is to try and inform on food and agricultural issues and to debunk related myths so that the citizens of the XXIst century that we are, are able to better understand the world around us and act in order to change it and make a reality of the utopia of a sustainable world without hunger

There are around 800 million persons suffering currently from chronic hunger. This large number includes far more people than those who can be seen on the international media at times of crises which may increase dramatically the number of people suffering from food insecurity

How is it possible that, in a world richer than ever and with the most sophisticated technologies, so many people live in such an inacceptable situation which violates the most fundamental human right, the right to food? [More on world hunger…]

Hunger is man-made. It is the result of the power structure existing among actors involved in food and agricultural issues [More on key issues…]. Food security, which is often referred to in the press, has multiple dimensions that must be well understood if appropriate action has to be taken [More on food security and on the causes of hunger].

Agriculture has been historically prone to periodical crises which have translated into famines. Since antique times, literature is full of references to famines. The European Middle Ages were characterized by a series of famines, including those which preceded the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 and which have often been pointed to as one of their causes, if not the main one.

Modern food crises are of a very different nature than those of the past. They are no more so much crises of availability of food, as there is sufficient food today to meet the needs of the 8 billion people living on the Earth. Possibilities also exist to satisfy future needs of a population estimated to reach almost 10 billion by 2050. Today’s crises are mainly crises of access to food by masses of people living in poverty [More on food crises…].

Questions that need to be raised and considered are: Who benefits from hunger? Which mechanisms contribute to perpetuate it? What should change for hunger to really decrease and be finally eradicated? How can food systems be made more sustainable and climate friendly?. This site also analyses successive food crises and demonstrates that they are results of human decisions, not of fatality, and that it is possible to avoid such dramatic events in the future. Finally, it tries to challenge some of the prevailing misconceptions on hunger.

Based on facts, this site uses its author’s experience of more than three decades in international cooperation in the field of food and agriculture (More on the author…). Starting from the analysis of the global food system, its components and its dynamics, this site attempts to make a synthesis of the experience of a life and of the results of the last analyses and research conducted in this area. It adopts a language designed to be accessible to all. In doing this, it should offer some venues to transform a necessary utopia into reality.

Finally, it aims at keeping readers informed on key news relating to food and agriculture and gives the floor to diversified opinions on important topics.

On this site, information is grouped by key themes. These themes gather key articles published over the years on hungerexplained.org. [Check here]

Acknowledgements

hungerexplained.org would like to thank all those who provided their support and encouragement, particularly Andrew MacMillan, Jomo K. Sundaram, Jocelyne Récalde, George-André Simon, Hélène Basquin, Andrée-Anne Côté-St-Laurent, Byron Ponce-Segura, Zeina Abadleh, Mathias Maetz, Maria-Grazia Quieti, Coumba Sow, Frédéric Dévé, Jacques Du Guerny and Marie-Christine Tarby.

Opinions expressed here, unless otherwise specified, as well as errors are the responsibility of hungerexplained.org.