Most of the world does not have enough to eat. The African continent has the highest food security risk; this means that most African countries are unable to grow enough food to feed their populations, and that many of those same African countries do not have enough grain stored for emergencies:
Over the decades, many Americans have asked why there are so many starving Africans. This question is almost always followed by, "Why can't they feed themselves? They have all of that land--why don't they work hard to farm it like our ancestors had done?"
In many African countries, the majority of the population is engaged in some form of agriculture. Many tribes have been engaged in farming for centuries and take pride in their connection to the land. Unfortunately, people in these countries have lost expertise due to the slave trade, internal warfare, disease, and colonialism. The colonizing powers often had little or no interest in helping African farmers embrace scientific advances or technology that would make them self-sufficient and have no need for what colonizers dumped upon them. When the African nations fought for independence, the colonizing powers left them without infrastructure that would support modern agriculture or trade.
University of Minnesota graduate Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the Green Revolution, first brought the concept of "hybrid vigor" to Mexican wheat and corn farmers in 1940. Borlaug's experiment, originally designed to create strains of wheat and corn with immunity to the rust that was killing crops, significantly increased crop yields. With assistance from the United States and Mexican governments, Borlaug developed a sustainable agricultural system in Mexico. Borlaug brought this system to India, China, and other Asian countries. In no time, many of these countries were able to feed themselves, export grain, and develop urban industries. It was easy for these countries, though--all of them already had ancient systems of irrigation and roads that allowed farmers to bring their harvest to market. This was not the case in most African countries.
Egypt has claimed the Nile; two treaties set in colonial times blocked upstream development of that water source. The Nile runs through nine African nations--Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo. While Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo usually have sufficient rainfall for agriculture, the Sudanese and Ethiopians have been restricted in how much water they could take from the Nile. Imagine watching a rushing river flow through your village while your fields are cracked bowls of clay and everyone all around you is dying from starvation. Only recently has the Egyptian government decided to enter talks with Ethiopia in regard to water rights for agriculture.
While Borlaug brought his Green Revolution to Latin America and Asia, the United States and other Western nations were also using these techniques. They were growing so much food that farmers were losing money. Governments of these nations gave farmers subsidies to keep growing, and to send the surplus grain to African countries. At the same time, the World Bank and the Reagan Administration told African nations that agriculture wasn't a profitable enterprise for them, and that they should spend their time and energy developing industry. In the meantime, these same powers provided no guidance to the African nations as to how to do this, either. It was during the Reagan Administration that the world saw the millions of famine victims on television, which led to rock concert benefits and a Japanese man named Ryoichi Sassakawa to contact Borlaug and offer to join him on a trip to Africa to continue the Green Revolution there. Former President Jimmy Carter also joined, and together they formed the Sassakawa Africa Assocation. While the Sassakawa team proved that science can help farmers increase yields anywhere around the world, their success can only be sustained with money for seed, fertilizer, and maintenance of equipment, as well as infrastructure that supports the farmers in the first place.
Most agricultural aid to Africa from the West came in the form of grains, peas, and beans--including types that the African farmers could easily grow in their own countries, and still did as well as they were able. The West sent almost no aid to Africa that would help them develop their agricultural systems or infrastructure. The African farmers could not make a living from their crops due to the heavily subsidized and protected market for Western grain, and so the Africans grew less. This meant that, if there was a drought or a war, the Africans would have no surplus of their own on which to depend; many were being forced to leave their farms and depend on Western food aid. During the genocides that took place in Sudan, Rwanda, and other African nations, the people killed were farmers, and their farms and crops were destroyed by the enemy who did not want them to ever return to their land. A generation of children have grown up in refugee camps, and they have lost their connection to farming. Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases are taking away healthy farmers, leaving old grandparents and children too young to work behind. In the meantime, few of the struggling farmers can afford sufficient food for their families in troubled times; children grow up chronically malnourished, or die from starvation or deficiency-related diseases altogether.
Starvation affects nations for generations to come. When a significant percentage of the population suffers from chronic malnutrition, those people do not have the energy or health to study, work, or even bear and raise healthy children. When disease strikes chronically malnourished people, even the most effective medications cannot save them, because their bodies are too weak to accept the antibiotics.
People of the African nations are all too aware of these imbalances; some fall under the influence of terrorist organizations who want to destroy Western countries. Others simply fight for resources for their own tribe, or their own family. Eradicating hunger is a human rights issue; maintaining the current system will lead to increased terrorism and suffering for all human beings on this planet. After reading Enough, many Americans will feel as if their government and the media has lied to them all this time about African potential; the book is a call to action, to protest current farm subsidy legislation in order to help out some of our fellow 99%.
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