For a while now a virus which people don’t talk enough about has been killing our country, this virus that causes the death of almost 9 million people in the world, more than AIDS and Tuberculosis combined in 2012, is called “hunger”. And the simple cure for that is “food”. The food produced around the world can feed four times the world's population, yet 30% people still starve. Every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger.
Here are some of the causes for hunger in India:
1. Wastage of food- food wastage has always been a serious problem that, the importance of which cannot be emphasized enough. The food produced by farmers is enough to feed 10 billion people in the world and still 821 million people are starving. The total amount of food wasted every year is more than half of the world’s serial crop, more than 1/3rd food available for consumption is gone to waste.
2. Poverty- Poverty is the principle cause of hunger. According to statistics, 276 million people (about 23.6% of the population in India) live below the poverty line. Poverty has a great impact on the amount of food required for survival. Most of the people living in poverty are too poor to obtain adequate food. Almost 3.1 million children die due to hunger every year and over 90% of the malnourished people live in developing countries.
3. Drinking water scarcity- water is the elixir of life. The lack of safe drinking water due to vast demand, water pollution and unhygienic water can cause various dangerous and communicable diseases and infections and harm not only humans but also animals. These water borne diseases can cause acute malnutrition.
4. Climate change- climate change has been increasingly causing more and more natural disasters over the years which is killing our planet. Floods, droughts, cyclones, famines, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc have been exponentially increasing. The vulnerable areas are more impacted by climate change and along with this, comes the fast and dangerous spread of infectious diseases and a great impact on health. Livestock and agriculture production are greatly affected and the deaths due to lack of food, hunger have been increasing.
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