Food Deficits and Hunger
In 1984 FAO reported that 54 of 117 countries studied
over the preceding decade could not grow enough food
on their own land to feed their populations using the
low levels of agricultural technology available to most
people (103). Most of these food-deficit countries
could not import enough food to make up the shortfall.
Since the early 1980s FAO has issued yearly reports listing the world's
low-income, food-deficit countries. In 1996 there were 82 such countries,
half of them in Africa (see Figure 2.
Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries, 1996). By definition, these
countries have a per capita gross national product (GNP) of US$1,345 or
less and have had a net deficit in grain trade over the preceding five
years (99).
The situation could grow worse for food-deficit countries. In many of
them, population growth is among the most rapid in the world, and most
face serious constraints to increasing agricultural production (97).
To one degree or another, these constraints affect many other developing
countries as well:
- Limited agricultural land. The best agricultural
land is already being cultivated. Most of the remaining potential agricultural
land consists of clay or sandy soils, often on steep slopes with limited
water supplies, or nutrient-poor tropical soils (97,
98, 99);
- Limited water supplies. Fresh water resources are
scarce, and there often are severe water shortages during dry seasons
(99, 133);
- Poverty. Farmers often lack enough land to feed their families,
let alone to produce food sur- pluses for sale (99),
while their countries cannot afford to import enough food to meet people's
needs;
- Poor access to credit. Many farmers cannot obtain loans to
bridge the gap in their incomes between harvests and must seek work
as laborers or even sell off some of their land to survive (98);
- Lack of appropriate policies. To produce more
food, communities need help obtaining suitable
technologies and crop varieties and developing
sound agricultural strategies (111).
