After a decade of steady decline in world hunger, food insecurity is again on the rise. In a world with immense resources and wealth, over 900 million people are still left hungry each day, even with more than enough food being produced to feed everyone on the planet.

Unfortunately, environmental issues such as climate change, forest degradation, water shortages, and decreased biodiversity have been adding to global hunger.

In this article, we’ll look at world hunger in detail, examining the causes and solutions alongside how world hunger affects the environment.

World hunger is, at the most basic level, insufficient food to ensure community flourishing. But hunger is also a bit more complex than that. Hunger is not just about having less food to eat, but also about having less nutritious food to eat. A large portion of the world’s hungry population is affected by micronutrient deficiencies – a lack of vitamins and minerals needed for good health.

This is often referred to as “hidden hunger” (a term used to explain what happens when people are not getting enough vitamins and minerals) because there are likely no evident, clear signs of hunger.

When people are undernourished, they tend to also struggle with health concerns and job or education performance; often hungry homes can be prone to domestic violence and hungry communities can be prone to conflict over limited resources. In these ways, hunger often catalyzes a vicious cycle where hunger and poverty feed into one another, leading to even more hunger in communities.

Continuous uncertainty due to climate change, conflicts, and economic downturns all lead to food insecurity. However, for most hungry people living in developing countries, the biggest source of hunger is poverty.

The main causes of global hunger:

1. Poverty – is a major cause of global hunger. Millions of people around the world struggle to purchase food due to interruptions in food production, unstable markets, lack of steady employment, and the inflation of food prices. These families often also lack the resources to grow their own food, such as arable land and the means to harvest, process, and store food.
2. Conflict – is yet another driver of world hunger. Human conflict such as war and violent political upheavals destroy homes, strain economies, ruin infrastructure and halt farm operations. Often, these conflicts are precipitated by poverty and hunger, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.
3. Climate change – is one of the leading causes of global starvation, resulting in severe weather conditions that make farming unpredictable and can cost communities their entire crops due to lack of rain or inconsistent rainfall. Over 80 percent of the world’s hungry people live in climate-disaster-prone countries.
4. Food waste – almost one-third of food produced worldwide is wasted or discarded every year. If we could restore all the food we waste, we could feed every starving person in the world twice.

Responding to global hunger requires a multi-pronged approach:

When well handled, our agriculture, forestry, and fisheries will supply everybody on the planet with sufficiently healthy food and generate sustained income with less environmental detriments. One of the ways we can do this is through climate-adaptive farming, which refers to making changes in processes, practices, or structures to adapt to the potential damages associated with changes in our climate. This includes teaching people how to better implement more efficient irrigation practices, improving soil quality and diversifying crop rotations.

World Renew provides training and support so communities can adopt sustainable agriculture practices. For example in Honduras, where communities suffer and lose crops due to droughts and excessive rain which has led them to become food insecure. Since April of 2019, World Renew has contributed to the food security of at least 100 families in the Dry Corridor with aquaponics. These highly efficient systems have helped these communities grow both fish and vegetables in a closed, symbiotic manner, whilst also meeting COVID-19’s added challenges.

We have rapidly degrading water, trees, land, and biodiversity. Climate change continues to place pressure on these precious resources as the number of natural disasters continues to increase worldwide. With the growing likelihood that these extreme events will continue to increase in the future, the world is also facing increased displacement of vulnerable people groups. Resilience requires a shift in housing, sanitation, herding, and farming for millions of people in order to ensure communities can withstand the long-term impact of climate change already headed their way.

Taking part in climate change advocacy will not only help adjust the course of policy in the United States in order to minimize and mitigate future harm but can also help build awareness and raise support for already vulnerable global populations so they can better deal with crises – starting first and foremost with securing access to stable food sources.

Educating people on proper nutrition, hygiene, and sanitation in order for them to remain healthy is very important for food security. The lack of clean drinking water and inadequate sanitation and hygiene, for example, already cause many diseases and infections, depriving children of their potential, and preventing farmers from tending to their fields.

In Kenya, where poverty is no stranger, one of many of World Renew’s programs focuses mainly on access to clean water and proper hygiene. In just one year, World Renew helped 1500 families start treating their drinking water. We also train families in adequate drip irrigation techniques through climate-adaptive farming initiatives.

World hunger and global food insecurity have both direct and indirect impacts on the environment. Oftentimes, the unsustainable short-term solutions people pursue to battle world hunger cheaply damage the environment the most, leading to deforestation, water pollution, and excessive carbon dioxide emissions. These environmentally unfriendly practices to feed hungry families are harming ecosystems that are crucial for the planet and further contribute to the effects of climate change.

Here are three ways unsustainable practices to tackle world hunger affect the environment:

Commercial farming accounts for about 15.3 billion trees that are cut down each year to grow crops for livestock and clear land for grazing. These trees are being annihilated by farmers through chopping, burning, or bulldozing them into grazing fields. The soybean growth in the rainforest of the Amazon is also responsible for clearing over 100 million acres of forest, introducing enough carbon emissions into the atmosphere to increase the rate of global warming. 

To ensure that efforts to tackle world hunger are not damaging the environment, we need to implement sustainable agriculture practices and empower communities to develop the resources necessary in the long run.

Most Malawi crops have suffered due to extreme weather changes. For example, extended droughts or too much rain has left most farmlands drained and degraded. In addition to that, deforestation due to slash and burn agriculture has not helped sustain food production and farm yields are inconsistent at best. This has led to widespread food insecurity and malnutrition. 

But with the help of World Renew, there has been an increase in the number of people practicing conservation agriculture and empowering church members and other community leaders to develop community plans to meet this goal. This includes employing farmers with tactics such as using a kassine, which is a plowing and sowing machine pulled by a draft animal which allows a small-scale farmer to cultivate larger areas of land to increase production. As well as utilizing compost Ecosan latrines allows compost created through latrines to fertilize deficient farmland.

Every year, 90 percent of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is from the different fossil sources used to generate energy transportation and synthetic pesticides/fertilizers, especially in the case of factory farming, where toxic chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia are released which in turn affect human health negatively.

In addition, about 37 percent of world methane emissions are accounted for by factory farming. Methane possesses 20 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide. These growing methane and carbon dioxide levels also have a huge impact on the global food system and the environment. 

With higher amounts of carbon dioxide, the synthesis of carbohydrates such as sugars and starch increases and protein and nutrient levels decrease in plants. This means that other foods like wheat and potatoes are also affected. 

With billions of people already suffering from malnutrition on the earth, we need to find ways to help agriculture be more sustainable, especially in identifying plants that may be less vulnerable to nutrient deficits.

Water pollution can destroy entire ecosystems and be toxic to people and animals, if not deadly. Industrial agriculture consumes about 70 percent of world freshwater sources, and in 75 percent of all the rivers and streams of America alone there are water quality issues. 

Huge waste stocks of factory farming are known as leaks into the neighboring rivers, which enable the levels of fungi, bacteria and nitrate to rise rapidly.

Water pollution in agriculture can also lead to increased microbiological and chemical pollutants in crops, soil, animal products, and water resources  can cause severe health issues for those exposed like farmworkers and food consumers. For instance, the over-farming of rice in paddy fields that are flooded by water leads to increased levels of arsenic. This environmental pollution can leave farmers vulnerable to health issues, including skin damage, problems with the circulatory system, and a high risk of cancer.

In addition to that, a lack of proper sanitation practices often in under-developed regions of the world can also lead to water pollution. Without proper sanitation facilities, waste from infected individuals can contaminate a community’s land and water, increasing the risk of widespread illnesses and death.

Climate-related disasters affect the supply of food in many countries and lead to an increase in food insecurity. These events can cause limited access to food. Drought is particularly harmful to communities, as it reduces livestock and farm production, and often triggers a broader range of issues tied to poverty.

At World Renew, we work with organizations to help families worldwide to sustainably produce their own food, store resources for food crises, and respond to emergencies when conflict or disaster have robbed people of access to food. Families worldwide suffer from food insecurity and Jesus has called us to deliver His tangible love to them all.

We should strive to create a world in which food is shared, everyone has a seat at the table, and there is still enough food to go around. Let’s work together for global sustainable food systems in the fight against hunger and bring world hunger relief.

The bible teaches us in Isaiah 58:7 – Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help”.

Meet Row Shan, a mother of two in Bangladesh, who has seen her crops reliably grow more bountiful with World Renew training in sustainable farming in place now her family’s food and income are more secure and Row Shan can afford to send her daughters to school.

Now with the COVID-19 pandemic, the global hunger crisis is growing and endangering the lives of the world’s most vulnerable communities. You can donate to join us on our goal and help us provide vital assistance to those who need it most.