Abstract

The concept of security is crucially central to the International Relations discipline. In contemporary society, one of the biggest threats to global security is perceived to be climate change, together with an increasing focus on the expanding population. Rising food prices, coupled with global economic downturn, have ignited political mobilisation and lead to food politics shifting to the forefront of the political agenda. This project attempts to intertwine traditional theoretical concepts with newer sociological ideas to try and understand how and why global hunger remains a widespread problem in the 21^st century; it is an idea which is emerging as the success of international aid remains in doubt. The central argument is the realisation that hunger is much more than just a physical bodily condition, and therefore cannot be fully understood without a focus on its human aspects, such as relations, emotions and choices. Theories of food justice and insecurity are analysed through Malthusian questions over sustainability, utilitarian puzzles over inequality and within the debate surrounding the questionable success of international food aid. Food consumption in the form of its instrumental, hedonistic and symbolic value is recognised as being underrepresented in rights-based approaches and blueprinted targets, including the freedom from hunger and the Millennium Development Goals.

Introduction

Approaching International Hunger is a qualitative research project which aims to succinctly analyse the dominant ways in which we understand international hunger. It emerged as a response to a critical article entitled More Than One Billion People are Hungry. But what if the Experts are Wrong?, by economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (2011a). They argue that the dominant approaches to hunger are non-complete because they assume that human beings act solely as rational individuals. Within this assumption, the importance of social, cultural and anthropogenic factors such as choice, risk, stigma, motivation and pleasure, is largely underestimated.

It is widely acknowledged that food study has always been a disparate discipline. Fine et al (1996) observe that the fragmentation of thought which is currently in place suggests there is an inadequate understanding of the importance of food and hunger in modern society. Nunn and Qian suggest that hunger, poverty and food aid are highly fungible, and it is this which makes recognising their causes, consequences and effects more difficult (2011). Ultimately, it is apparent that discrepancies between economic, sociological and political spheres have led to a void of understanding which does not sufficiently address the human effects of international hunger.

Breaking down the available literature into distinct sections allowed for a simplification of the diverse topic. Initial theories had an ideological basis, concentrating on the basic human right to food. The dominant bulk of information contained material which had a pro-aid rhetoric, which included statements and policy from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Food Programme (WFP) and advocates for neoliberal development policy such as Jeffery Sachs (2005). The third body formulated around the work of critical aid scholars, largely composed of right-wing political economists such as William Easterly (2006) and Dambisa Moyo (2010), who argue strongly for the elimination of aid and the protection of the free market to build independence. The final and most recent body of research proposes a shift away from the grand overarching ‘solutions’ to hunger that can be recognised within the dominant approaches, and argues instead for a deeper focus on the lives of the poor; qualitative surveying over quantitative economic supposition. The project follows this basic literary structure, adding detail and debate to carry the argument that each approach has different assumptions of human nature.

The methodological research was conducted through desk-based analysis. The selection process began fairly randomly with a broad search on the University of the West of England library database for literature on ‘food insecurity,’ ‘food politics’ and ‘food aid.’ It was not until the discovery of the Banerjee and Duflo article that the central idea shifted away from a typical empirical study to a focus on the significance of international human relations (2011a). Information was collected from a variety of secondary sources, particularly journals, books and research reports. Twitter presented links to current newspaper articles, which allowed relevant information to be sourced in a way that textbooks could not provide; this was useful for collating the latest available academic thought. The micro-blogging site was a useful source as it allowed for the dissemination of information, from the increased attention it has been receiving from academic scholars through to the updated policy of institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organization.

To understand how the dominant approaches to international hunger have developed, an outline of the traditional concepts of hunger, injustice and human rights must be laid out. The structure of the project sees Chapter One therefore focusing on ideological approaches towards hunger; attempting to simplify the vast selection of theories, concepts and ideas which have formulated as a response to its persistence throughout history. It is significant because it highlights a paradigm shift away from hunger as an issue of individual injustice, towards the recognition that hunger is an interconnected social problem. It aims to put in place the theoretical groundwork on which the following chapters will build upon.

Chapter Two moves away from normative philosophical and economic arguments and focuses on food aid as a solution to international hunger. It distinguishes between three types of aid: emergency, project, and programme aid, although it notes that this distinction is not always so clear cut in practice. The main body of the chapter looks at the divide between the dominant neoliberal argument, as seen in the majority of the literature by aid advocates (Sachs, World Food Programme, Food for Peace) and the arguments of the critical aid scholars, particularly composed of free-market economists such as William Easterly and Dambisa Moyo.

Chapter Three progresses away from the politics of hunger and focuses instead on consumption, collectivism and the choices of the poor. It is argued that the rational economic models outlined in the first two chapters do not take into account this human face of hunger. Banerjee and Duflo (2011b) propose that this lies with the lack of research into the relationships people have with food, whether directly as consumers or indirectly as members of a particular family, clan, ethnicity or nation. This chapter looks at three types of consumption – instrumental, hedonistic and symbolic – and suggests that traditional approaches to international hunger misjudge the importance of a relationship-based approach.

Concluding the project, the final section offers an example of an alleviation approach aimed at mobilising the general public: a website called Freerice, which is endorsed by the World Food Programme (2012b). It is entitled Play and Feed Hungry People as an ironic reference to the intention of the website, which calls for individuals to play online games to donate grains of rice to those suffering from hunger. It has been included in this project as it exemplifies the dominant misunderstanding that food has a purely instrumental value; the satisfaction of extreme hunger. It highlights the need for a shift away from this perception of food as a simple object, towards an approach which appreciates its symbolic, emotive and contextual values.

Chapter One: Food Justice: Ideological Approaches to Hunger

“…Once a man be done with hunger, rich and poor are all as one.” Euripides’ Electra 400bc.
(As quoted in Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009: 3).

This chapter is concerned with identifying ideological approaches towards hunger. It is an attempt to simplify the vast selection of theories and concepts which underpin the dominant assumptions that can be recognised today. The first part will look at theories of justice (including utilitarianism and fairness) and theories of entitlement (the capability approach). The link between justice, fairness and capabilities will be analysed through the work of distinguished economist Amartya Sen (1999). Sen moves away from the traditional understanding of hunger, which is synonymous with overall food decline. Instead, he describes an approach which considers hunger as a side product of limited entitlement and purchasing power. This is important because it implies that people’s relationship with food needs to be understood much more closely. As a paradigm shift it reflects a step away from hunger as an issue of individual injustice, towards the recognition that hunger is an interconnected social problem. The second section of this chapter will begin to look at our present ‘solutions’ to hunger through the discourse of human rights. It will focus specifically on the normative rights to food and freedom from hunger, and the important differences between them. Finally, the Millennium Development Goals will be outlined and their linkages to the rights-based approach will be discussed. The concluding remarks will outline how the chapter aimed to put in place the theoretical groundwork to which the following chapters will build upon.\

Justice, Fairness and Capabilities

A widely discussed and debated theory of justice is utilitarianism, which concerns the maximisation of overall benefit. For this project, it seems an appropriate concept to start with, as its claims substantiate the historical idea that overall food supply must be increased to support an expanding population (Warnock, 1987). Considered one of its founding fathers, Bentham adopts a hedonistic psychology, identifying pain and pleasure as the basic explanatory concept (Kelly, 1990: 17). He states that basic pleasure can be found within combinations of complex interests, but more importantly, agents are motivated towards different pleasures depending on their circumstances. Over a quantity of time, a sum of pleasures can be signified as an achievement of ‘happiness.’ A utilitarian solution to the persistence of hunger would therefore call for an overall increase in food production. Increasing the quantity of food available in the world would allow the maximum number of people to achieve ‘happiness.’

However, a utilitarian approach raises serious questions over sustainability and fails to address equally serious assumptions about human behaviour (Warnock, 1987). A normative flaw can be assumed using Malthusian conclusions: eventually, availability of resources would be outreached by exponential population growth. This is a basic criticism to a utilitarian approach; a more complex argument would look towards understandings of justice, which are left out of the utilitarian debate.

John Rawls (1999) suggests that the social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control, but a pattern of human action. Injustice is simply inequalities which are not to the benefit of all. Rawls argues that utilitarianism cannot make sense of distributive justice as it is only concerned with increasing overall benefits. It considers only a structural, macro-level approach to hunger, and ignores the micro-level effects of hunger on individuals (Niada, 2006: 139). Utilitarianism and Malthusian arguments do not take into account moral rights, which imply every person is entitled to certain liberties. Increasing the overall availability of food, in a utilitarian approach, would heighten injustice and inequality. In Rawls’ view, the moral priority of persons and their rights is more important than their subjective well-being. This assumption forms the basic foundation for human rights, which will be discussed shortly.

Rawls suggests that what is just or unjust is the way that institutions deal with natural distribution. He is not suggesting that every person must have equal access to every resource, but he does argue that each person should be able to increase their access to these resources through institutions. The Food Ethics Council (2010) entitles this ability, ‘Equality of Opportunity,’ as it defines the access a person has open to them to bring about a particular outcome. For example, it is not unfair that some people are wealthier, healthier or happier than others, so long as they have had the opportunity to change their status. Simplified further, if a person is in poverty because he chosen not to work, then his relative deprivation can be considered as being fair; however, if a person is in poverty because he cannot find work, then his standings can be considered to be unfair.

Equality of Opportunity is important because it begins to understand some of the reasons for the existence of hunger and poverty. It provides a foundation for the distribution of outcomes that make up our modern society. Looking purely at the distributions of gains and burdens in the world can give us an overview of statistics, traits and figures, but it cannot provide a full explanation for what is fair and what is not fair. It is only when access availability is considered that hunger can be understood properly as being an inequality of outcome following an inequality of opportunity. This concept provides the basic foundation for Sen’s Entitlement Approach.

Amartya Sen is one of the most widely cited economists in the realm of food policy; Sheeran (2010), Fafchamps and Shilpi (2007) and Gabre-Madin (2007) all quote his work on Poverty and Famines in their exploration of the subject. Sen’s Entitlement Approach is unique in its understanding of hunger within a social, economic and legal framework. His suggestion that famines can occur in the absence of an overall decline in food availability led to an expansion of public action away from a traditional market economy focus. Sen and Dreze (1999) draw upon Rawls’ theory of justice as a basis for their approach. They suggest an individual’s positive liberty is vital in securing the freedom to reach one’s potential. This idea sets the foundation for the bulk of literature on the right to food, and also for solutions to hunger such as food aid. Food aid will be examined fully in Chapter Two.

Sen challenged income-based commodity approaches which emphasise economic growth as a necessary precursor for human development. Sen also argues against the utility approach which focuses primarily on happiness and pleasure. He recognises Rawls’ understanding that utility does not distinguish between different sources of pleasure and pain, but more fundamentally, he argues that there is more to life than fulfilling desires (Clark, 2006). Instead, what is required is a focus on the capability of humans to achieve a given function, for example adequate nourishment, given their accesses to commodities, such as bread or rice. This is the basic thought-train of the Entitlement and Capability Approach.

Sen and Dreze (1999: 8) argued that it is the simplicity of the ‘increased population: increased overall supply’ solution which has led to its dominance in policy and policy discussion. It has typically been assumed that a decline in food production will lead to starvation in the future. However, food availability decline, or the FAD approach, does not give sufficient explanation of the starvation within Bengal (1943), Bangladesh (1974), Ethiopia (1973-4) and the Sahel (1968-73), to name just a few of the largest famines in recent times (Sen, 1986). FAD is limited because it does not go into the relationship of people to food (Sen and Dreze, 1999: 154).

Sen and Dreze suggest that to understand starvation fully, ownership relations have to be considered. This abstract concept implies that the relationship between persons is vital to the understanding of their entitlement status. It is these links which determine whether or not a person has the ability to demand food through the means available in society. Under the Entitlement Approach, a person will stave if he does not have the ability to command enough food (pp. 45). It is important to note here that the Entitlement Approach does not take into account choice failures, for example a person’s decision not to use his ability to avoid starvation. The choices of the poor will be developed in Chapter Three.

What Sen and others have implied is that considering poverty in the traditional way cannot provide a detailed explanation for the persistence of hunger. Rather, the key to understanding starvation lies within a development of our understanding of human relations. However, mapping these entitlement relations must be done in consideration with the legal, political, economic and social characteristics of a society. As Warnock (1987) argued, hunger is a social problem and one without an overarching solution.

The next section will look at the normative approach to the alleviation of global hunger, which starts with the implementation of human rights. Human rights are a powerful discourse in international law as they are intended to be transcendent of historical and geographical distance, and ultimately universal (Douzinas, 2000: 6). Whilst human rights have been criticised from many different directions, such as Marxists, Utilitarians and Cultural Relativists, they do provide a strong foundation for international action. One major criticism argues that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is simply a compilation of normative ideals, rights which we ‘should’ have as opposed to rights which we are all protected by. Relating this back to the concept of justice, neither notion can provide statements of absolute fact; however both have vital connotations: food is a basic necessity of human life. Without food, people are subjected to hunger, famine and poverty. The complex relationship between food and poverty will also be explored in the final part of this chapter.

The Right to Food and the Freedom from Hunger

The establishment of human rights lies within the revolutionary documents of the American Declaration of Independence (1776), the French Declaration (1789) and the later Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). They suggest that all men are born equal in rights and in dignity; indeed, they are intended to be abstract natural rights paralleled by every baby at birth (Douzinas, 2000: 85). Violations occur however when states fail in their responsibility to protect these rights; state failure being the biggest cause for the persistence of hunger and malnutrition in modern society (Windfuhr, 1998).

The doctrine ensures the right to food within Article 25; “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the well-being of himself and his family, including food…” (FAO, 1998). In 1998, the Commission on Human Rights adopted Resolution 1998/23 on the right to food (Robinson, 1998). This reaffirmed the assumption that hunger constitutes a violation of human dignity, which requires urgent action by the state, regional actors and the international community. The International Convent on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) takes this a step further, recognising the right to food as a distinct concept to the freedom from hunger (FAO, 1998). The right to a freedom from hunger is fundamental, meaning that the state has the duty to ensure people do not die from starvation. This right is powerful as it is closely linked to the right to life itself. The right to food is more complex. It is linked to the enjoyment of adequate supplies; it suggests that all persons should be entitled access (physically and economically) to food which allows them to live a healthy and active life. Food must be sustainable, culturally acceptable and must not interfere with the provision of other human rights. The difference between the two rights is important to note, but must not tempt us into prioritising one over the other. The fundamental ‘freedom from hunger,’ if adopted as a preliminary precursor to the ‘right to food,’ could result in a narrowing of the issue to focus only on starvation (Niada, 2006: 151). This would be detrimental to the alleviation of other existences of hunger, such as chronic malnutrition and exposure to disease.

The linkage between the right to food and the right to health is explored in the work of Eide (1998). She suggests that available food supply must cover overall nutritional needs in terms of quality and quantity. Therefore, food with a high calorie count is important, but only if it is integrated with food containing micronutrients, vitamins and iodine. Eide also argues that food should be safe, that is, free from toxins and contaminants, and of good quality in terms of taste and texture. A violation of these understandings of the right to food would jeopardise a person’s right to health, even if it did allow a person to be freed from hunger. Taste, as an important part of hedonistic happiness, will be explored further in Chapter Three.

Traditionally however, human rights issues have been analysed from mono-disciplinary perspectives, which has envisaged the fragmentation of conceptual thought. Particularly neglected is the bridge between human rights theory and economic processes (Vizard, 2006). Dominant discourses in ethics have often overlooked or downgraded global poverty as a human rights issue, whilst theoretical approaches in economics have paid inadequate attention to the range of normative perspectives addressed in ethical debates/established in human rights law.

This void has led to a confliction between the two sides: on one hand, fundamental freedom and human dignities; and on the other hand, development, growth and optimal resource allocation (Vizard, 2006: 12). The development of a bridge between economics and human rights could impact on new processes of ethical globalisation which are starting to emerge. Amartya Sen’s (1990) understanding of global poverty as the representation of a denial of basic human rights challenged the exclusion of freedoms from hunger and starvation in economic and ethical frameworks. In economics, Sen’s approach has overseen a shift from away from income, utility and growth, towards an increased emphasis on individual entitlement, capabilities and rights. In ethics, Sen is critical of the traditional approaches which ignore the outcomes of economic processes, such as utilitarianism and libertarianism. The division between the development-based and the rights-based approach is something which has been recognised by the international system, but remains highly visible in the everyday practice of food and hunger politics. At the international level this means that organisations such as the United Nations are charged with monitoring the realization and violation of the right to adequate food, while development agencies and individual state governments provide technical, financial and food assistance (Robinson, 1998).

At this point, it is relevant to bring in some important semantic observations. When shifting through the available research, it was not always apparent which context the term ‘hunger’ was being used in. This was particularly noticeable within the dominant literature, as often the notion of hunger often assumed immediate starvation, which justified the need for emergency food aid (see, for example World Food Programme: 2012b). The linkage between hunger and malnutrition, in terms of nutrient deficiency, was much less noticeable  For Sen, hunger is understood to be the “discomfort or painful sensations caused by want of food,” and reference is made to the contextual differences which can accompany the concept (Sen and Dreze, 1990b: 7). As chronic hunger is defined as “sustained nutritional deprivation on a persistent basis,” starvation can then be considered as a state of extreme hunger (rather than chronic hunger), resulting from a lack of minerals over an extended period. Famine is recognised as “acute starvation and a sharp increase in mortality,” and it implies mass hunger and poverty (Sen and Dreze, 1990b). Poverty alone does not imply famine or starvation, but the links between each concept are intertwined, so its occurrence hints at their existence. The next section looks more closely at their connection.

Food, Poverty and the Millennium Development Goals

The relationship between food and poverty is complicated by the fact that hunger cannot be easily defined, making it difficult to measure. Surveys of food insecurity are commonly used to calculate hunger on a local scale, by questioning whether or not an individual has access to a sufficient food supply. However, this type of survey provides different answers that those which would be considered if nutritional deprivation was the questionable variable (Bhattacharya et al, 2004). Comparing the estimated effects of food insecurity to traditional measures of hardship and poverty provides interesting results. One example method for measuring diet quality is the US Healthy Eating Index. It is made up of individual components which assess nutritional quality of food intake by scoring on fruit, meat, grains, milk and vegetables. Scores range from one to ten for each component, and equate to 100 in total. The score is then judged as being ‘good,’ ‘needing improvement’ or ‘poor.’ (Guenther et al, 2007). Bhattacharya et al (2004) find that in the US, poorer people tend to have lower scores on the Healthy Eating Index, and are therefore more likely to have lower nutrient levels. If these results are reflected in the international system, they correlate with the assumption that hunger and poverty are intrinsically linked.

However, what is most striking about the study is the variation by age in the relationship between poverty and nutritional outcome. Bhattacharya concluded that it is possible that parents allocate household resources in a way that protects young children from the effects of poverty, and that older children in food insecure households have more opportunities to supplement their consumption outside the home. Understanding the relationships between people faced with malnutrition is a vital precursor for the alleviation of international hunger, yet this idea challenges the indivisible, individual nature embedded within the language of human rights. Indeed, the aspect of human rights which is most often criticised is that as a concept it is too abstract, too Western, and too individualised (Brems, 1997). Many cultures do not define themselves as autonomous individuals but as members of a group, family, clan, ethnicity or nation. The use of abstract categorisation is argued to be a product of Western thought, not shared by non-Westerners, and it forms the basis of cultural relativist critique.

Despite the critique of the rights-based approach, the majority of developmental literature appears to be based on its core foundation; justice for the individual alongside economic growth. An example of this is found within the discourse of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The eight MDGs range from the eradication of extreme poverty to the halt of the spreading of infectious diseases such as HIV and Aids (UN, 2010). As noted, the interconnected nature of poverty and hunger means that the goals are both directly and indirectly important to the alleviation of famine and chronic malnutrition. The first goal calls for the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. It is broken into sub targets concerning income, employment and hunger. The structure of the goal reveals immediately the perceived important connection between wages and hunger levels; it appears that indirectly halving the number of people on less than one dollar a day could make an impact on halving the number of people facing extreme hunger. Illustrating this, it is outlined within the 2010 MDG report that the recent food and financial crisis has halted progress to the reduction of the proportion of people facing undernourishment. Increased food prices and unemployment are also stated as the main reasons for a reduction in levels of purchasing power, leading back to increased malnutrition.

An important paradox to the traditional concept of malnutrition can be noted in Tanumihardjo et al (2007). Historically, malnutrition has been concerned with a lack of food, or food insecurity. However, new understandings see malnutrition not as a lack of entitlement to access overall food supply but as a consequence of poor diet, limited nutrient intake, and overconsumption of sugars and fats. As a result, we need to expand the construct of malnutrition to include over-nutrition. Malnourished adults with limited levels of sufficient nutrients may not show the typical signs of hunger which we might expect. They may not report feeling hungry at all, and, most importantly, they may not consider themselves as facing ‘extreme’ poverty in the conventional economic sense which we would associate with chronic malnutrition. One study of the poor in Jamaica, conducted by Drewnowski and Specter (2004) between 1988 and 1944, showed that as income levels increased, calorie needs were met. But this happened before complete food security was achieved, as nutritionally dense food such as fruit, vegetables, whole grain and lean meats were not readily available. Historically, national and international food programmes have asked the question of ‘do you have enough to eat?’ (Payne et al, 2001). They have overlooked the question of ‘were there enough foods of nutritional value on your plate?’ (Drewnowski and Specter, 2004).

Concluding Remarks

This chapter has provided a theoretical foundation for an analysis of the main themes to be discussed in the rest of the project. It has outlined a selection of important ideas which can be used to understand the dominant approaches to the existence of international hunger. From a historical point of view, it has suggested the importance of theories of justice, which are embedded within the discourse of the rights-based approach to a freedom from starvation. From an economic perspective, it has discussed theories of entitlement, which prove significant to the alleviation of chronic malnutrition.

However, both the rights-based approach and the Millennium Development Goals could do more to include the issues of entitlement and access which Sen and others have highlighted. This remains an important concept for the next chapter as it will be suggested that basing international food aid upon these approaches misjudges fundamental differences in human nature.

Chapter Two:  Food Insecurity: Is Aid the Solution?

The first chapter presented an outline of the main ideological concepts related to hunger and poverty, with a focus on Sen’s Entitlement Approach. Classical philosophical and economic theorists such as Malthus and Rawls have contributed to the arguments which have emerged over food distribution, supply and availability, and their theories have a part to play in understanding the persistence of hunger in the modern world. However, classical thinking rests almost entirely on rationalist assumptions about human nature, particularly the understanding that “trading and making money” is the primary motivation of all humans (Peet and Hartwick, 2009). The roots of classical economists lie within the British industrial bourgeoisie and limitations have become apparent as their approaches transcend cultural and class divisions.

This chapter moves away from normative philosophical and economic arguments over hunger and focuses on arguments over aid as a solution to international hunger. It is argued that food aid can be broken into three main types; emergency, project and programme aid. The first section of this chapter will analyse these distinctions. The second section will look at the dominant neoliberal argument towards aid, as seen in the majority of the literature written in the western world by aid advocates (Sachs, 2005) and NGOs. The final section will discuss the arguments of the critical aid scholars, particularly composed of free-market economists such as William Easterly (2006) and Dambisa Moyo (2010).

Types of Aid

There are three main categories of food aid; emergency, programme and project, and in this section each will be discussed in turn. Whilst it is important to note the different approaches to food aid, the distinction between them is not always clear cut and challenges do emerge. One particular example arises when trying to define emergency aid, as it is conceptually difficult to distinguish who and what makes an emergency situation into an emergency situation in the first place. Fitzpatrick (1994) argues that the main obstacle to the definition of an ‘emergency’ is the difficulty faced by categorising emergency situations which may exclude other scenarios which could violate human rights.

Leaving these problems to one side, however, emergency situations have been understood primarily as those which have arisen following periods of natural or man-made crisis, such as conflict, drought or disruptive tectonic activity. Sasson (1990) argues that food aid is necessary in these emergency situations. Nunn and Qian (2011) suggest that emergency food aid receives the largest amount of press coverage, and is understood as being the key solution for world hunger by the majority of the Western world. Public opinion in the industrialised countries providing the bulk of food aid remain convinced that this is the best way to solve the problem of hunger. However, they note that emergency relief makes up less than 10 per cent of global food aid. The remaining 90 per cent is comprised of different varieties of programme and project aid.

Emergency food aid is comprised of free deliveries of food to governments and NGOs responding to a particular crisis, be it natural disaster or human conflict (Nunn and Qian, 2011: 7). The primary goal of food aid after a humanitarian crisis is improving short-term access to food and nutrition, therefore increasing the security of food availability (Gilligan and Hoddinott, 2006). As shown in the previous chapter, food security policies are nonexistent to people who do not have entitlement access. In the short term, there is evidence that emergency food aid has improved access to food and increased welfare for those faced by humanitarian crisis (Gilligan and Hoddinott, 2006). Sustaining short term food security may act as a safety-net, reducing future reliance and allowing people to escape from the trap they may have found themselves in.

However, there is an acknowledgement among academics and the aid agencies themselves that in the long term, the positive effects of emergency food aid are less clear cut. Sasson (1990) speculates that non emergency food aid does not always benefit the most deprived, and in many cases goods have been sold for cash to reduce national government debt. This is often seen in the Western world as one of the key failures of food aid, however, there are other complex reasons to be critical of its consequences. From an International Relations point of view, all food aid, be it emergency, programme or project aid, can increase international dependency and undermine local food production. Sasson (1990) labels this the ‘beggar’s mentality’: increased dependency on food imports reduces state autonomy, politicizing global hunger as a target of power relations. But there are also important healthcare issues, particularly within the context of emergency aid, which arise from dependency on imported food. Marchione (2002) argues that victims in emergency situations often suffer serious health deficiencies as food is regularly delayed, insufficiently nutritious and uncoordinated with other aspects of need, such as water, vaccine or shelter. He also notes that culture and lifestyle differences, such as local product knowledge or religious dietary requirements, are seen as less significant in the rush to eliminate starvation.

Programme and project aid attempt to combat some of the causes and consequences of long-term hunger, poverty and limited entitlement. If 90 per cent of global food aid is not intended for victims of emergency famine or starvation, it is assumed that it is intended for victims of chronic hunger. Chronic hunger is synonymous with continuous, structural poverty (FAO, 2003). Ending chronic hunger requires a focus on the social, economic, cultural and political settings of those suffering from poverty. Its existence in society highlights a group of people struggling from a lack of purchasing power, brought about through the failure of the economic system (Sasson, 1990).

Programme aid is comprised of subsidised deliveries of food to a central government. The recipient government can subsequently sell the food and uses the proceeds for whatever purposes it see fit (Nunn and Qian, 2011). Programme food aid as a support for economic growth can be considered very successful, it can reduce food imports allowing the saved foreign exchange to be used to cover balance of payment deficits and repay external debt (Pillai, 2000). In theory it also increases the flexibility of government to spend the money on projects with the highest social returns, combating the problem of paternalistic reliance on the donor country. However, an increased flexibility of money can open up problems for corruption, particularly if the recipient state has only weak governance arrangements. Case study evidence from Pillai (2000: 198) has shown that on occasion programme aid can actually be detrimental to the wellbeing of the poorest as their purchasing power remains limited in comparison with government officials, members of the military and the economically elite. The lack of evidence promoting the success of programme food aid on the poor has led to a shift in allocations to different types of distribution.

Project food aid provides support to field-based projects in areas of chronic need through free deliveries of food. Food packages go either to a government or non-governmental organisation, which uses it directly, or monetizes it, to support the projects’ activities (Nunn and Qian, 2011). The justification for its success lies within the assumption that it can be used directly for those who need it the most. Within projects, food is distributed to schools or hospitals, where it is accompanied by educational initiatives aimed at children and mothers to help promote the benefits of healthy eating. This dual approach allows macro goals such as infrastructure development and employment generation to fit alongside initiatives aimed at ending chronic hunger or malnutrition.

It is difficult to assess the effects of programme and project aid on domestic food production. Abdulai et al (2004), on their study of food aid in sub-Saharan Africa, find that food aid has no disincentive effect on food production, and has in fact proven simulative in the short term. Their data suggests that food aid to sub-Saharan Africa lead to increased labour supply within agricultural businesses (p. 5), improved nutrition, and reduction to risk faced by small scale farmers (pp. 24). What is particularly interesting to note is that when household characteristics are not taken into account, for example age, gender, levels of education, size and locations of food aid recipients, the effects of food aid appear disincentive. However, when these differences are recognised, food aid appears to have a positive effect on balance on aggregate food productivity in sub-Saharan Africa, and can play a significant role in relieving the constraints faced by smallholder systems.

Jeffrey Sachs is a key figure in the debate over the success of food aid. He draws on understandings provided by economic and liberal development theorists such as Abdula et al (2004), Gilligan and Hoddinott (2006), but goes much further into the idea that aid is the solution for the world’s poorest. He proposes a rise in international aid to Africa from $65 billion in 2002 to $195 billion a year by 2015 to overcome extreme poverty on the continent (Sachs, 2005). The next section will look at Sachs and a keen advocate of his neoliberal views, Paul Collier. Both are central figures to the neoliberal view on food aid.

Neoliberal Approaches to Hunger

Neoliberalism is founded on two assumptions about the nature of human beings: their self interested egoism, and their quest for exponential freedom (Peet and Hartwick, 2009: 99). Markets are seen as functions which can harmonise their selfish choices; they are social constructions requiring rules and regulations to function succinctly. Neoliberal economics is based on the classical idea of the ‘rational economic man’ who assumes that privatisation, markets and the right prices can solve global problems. However it has been met by fierce challengers, particularly critical aid scholars such as William Easterly (2006) and Dambisa Moyo (2010), who will be discussed in the next section.

Sachs (2005) is a keen advocate for neoliberal development policy and is positive that continued and extended aid programmes are the solution for eradication of hunger. He is one of the directors of the Millennium Development Project, outlined in Chapter One, which aims to provide solutions to end poverty through a select number of goals (MDGs). The first of these goals is the Eradication of Poverty and Extreme Hunger (UNDP, 2012). The MDGs and The End of Poverty both contain the assumption that extreme poverty is a vicious cycle which requires external help to break its hold on the world’s poorest (Clunies-Ross et al, 2009: 600). This cycle is known as the poverty trap and can be seen in many different forms.

Sachs argues strongly that foreign aid is the cog which could stop the poverty trap from continuing. His argument is underlined by the metaphor of the ‘big push’ (Sachs et al, 2004). On a macro level, Sachs is urging foreign donors to invest in public projects which would rapidly increase Africa’s productivity level, although he does not distinguish between project or programme aid in this case. He believes that the MDGs act as a guiding point to breaking the poverty trap as they address the keys sectors in which major improvements are needed, and are internationally agreed. Linking the idea of Sachs back to the concept of food and hunger, the central poverty trap for this project is known as the nutrition-based trap.

The basic premises of the nutrition trap are these: individuals with low levels of nutrition are physically less able to participate in hard, manual labour. For the poorest, who tend to be living in rural areas, agriculture is the most common form of employment, yet this is heavy, manual work. A person with limited nutrition would have low productivity levels, implying their wages are lower, and their subsequent purchasing power is also very low. Consequently substantial food levels are not accessible, and unsatisfactory levels of nutrition remain endemic (Ragbendrea et al, 2008). Studies agree with the hypothesis that there is evidence of a correlation between micro nutrient consumption and productivity levels (Ragbendrea et al, 2008: Horton and Ross, 2002 and Lukaski, 2004).

Taking hunger eradication as an objective, and the nutrition trap as the problem, a set of solutions would need to take into account the issues at each stage of the trap. Rghbendra et al (2008), macroeconomic theorists, argue that improving nutrient intake would be the catalyst to mobile people away from the nutrient trap. They believe that creating jobs for the unemployed would not give sufficient stability to those facing chronic hunger, as there would be no social safety-net available for times of economic downturn.  Taking Sachs’ argument and linking it to empirical studies of healthcare and production levels, such as those provided by Rghbendra et al (2008), food aid appears to be a successful way of ending the nutrient based poverty gap.

Moving away from Sachs, a slightly less optimistic view is held by Collier (2007). He suggests that to break out of any form of poverty trap there needs to be a narrowing of the targets and a broadening of the instruments available to end poverty and hunger. Collier is a keen follower of Sachs, praising his passionate appeal and breadth of knowledge. However, unlike Sachs, he believes that foreign assistance aid does not have the capacity to function alone as a solution to extreme poverty. His main concern is that the MDGs have taken on too much, with too little infrastructure to help them achieve their goals.

Collier (2007) outlines four other traps faced by the poorest billion people in the world. He suggests that 70 per cent of these people live in Africa, and so has concentrated primarily on factors which influence the region as a whole. He suggests that each trap is important because it contributes to an increasing rate of poverty, unknown to other countries that are not halted exponentially by the mechanisms of the trap. Recognising and understanding the different traps is a relevant exercise because their impacts on hunger-related issues are substantial. Collier suggests that the percentage of long-term malnutrition in children is consistently higher in countries constrained by the traps; 36 per cent will suffer from long term health problems related food issues, compared to around 20 per cent in other developing countries.

The four traps Collier has developed are: conflict, governance, natural resources and geographical land-locking. He argues that each trap has formed because of the lack of growth within individual countries. Economic conditions have lead to instability, volatility and insecurity, which have constrained the poor to inescapable suffering. The only way to escape each of these traps is through external assistance, be it economically or through the promotion of good governance and democracy. While these types of traps are interesting to note, particularly for their interlocking nature and overlapping features, the most important for this analysis remains the nutrition trap. This has been central to the argument of Sachs and Collier, and as a concept has been pursued within development literature for over 50 years.

Critical Aid Scholars

Casting a critical eye over the idea of any form of poverty trap, William Easterly is an important theorist to recognise. He highlights at the beginning of his book The White Mans Burden, that 840 million people in the world do not have enough to eat (Easterly, 2006: 8). Noting the vast numbers of people facing hunger, water shortage, health concerns and a lack of education, he asks why, if the notion of the poverty trap is so straightforward and the Big Push aid solution is the answer, poverty has not been eradicated already. Easterly believes that Sachs is an example of the ‘typical’ development economist, by setting utopian goals and calling aid workers to focus on infeasible tasks.  He believes that aid agencies and international organisations need to focus on short-term programmes which get basic necessities such as food, water and medicine to the people who need them the most.

Easterly’s major critique of Sachs lies with his strong argument against the poverty trap. Easterly dismisses the idea completely, arguing that there is no evidence to prove conclusively that poverty occurs in a vicious cycle. He points to studies which have analysed the poorest countries throughout the past 50 years. Through these studies he suggests that the identities of each country continue to change, eleven out of the 28 poorest countries in 1985 were not in the same position in the 1950s (Easterly, 2006: 40). This implies that, at least on a national level, there is no conclusive evidence for the existence of a trap-like mechanism causing countries to lag behind in economic development.

Next, Easterly goes on to dismiss the myth that a Big Push of outside aid can help people escape from poverty. On the contrary, he calls for an influx of home-grown, market based development. He supports a business approach to poverty alleviation, as opposed to the charity-based model which is currently engrained into Western understandings of aid. He suggests that the solution to problems such as a lack of public trust, internal corruption and complexity of development is not aid from the West. Foreign aid given to corrupt governments does not benefit the people who need it the most. In terms of remaining apolitical in respect to sovereignty, this is unfeasible when large sums of money are being shifted from donor to recipient. In Easterly’s eyes, the best solution is reduced intervention (Easterly, 2006: 370).

However, this is not to say that the West should eradicate assistance completely. Easterly recognises that until markets begin to take off successfully in poor areas, assistance in the form of food and medicine packages, educational programmes and small-scale civic mobilisation can provide the impetus for larger-scale change. To ensure transparency and accountability, each programme must have opportunities given to the intended beneficiaries for feedback. This could be collected in the form of surveys, experiments and communication through civil society movements. Easterly also suggests that the evaluation of results is imperative for the continued success of assistance programmes, yet holding accountable those who implemented projects which have continuously failed is a controversial premise. In the West there has been no penalisation of those who have implemented utopian agendas which have had little or slow progress in the past, including social mobilisation events such as Live Aid (1985) and Make Poverty History (2005), and international targets such as the MDGs.

It is important to note here, however, that some of Easterly’s claims suggest he could have a narrower view of the definition of aid than Sachs and Collier. His focus on self-help, bottom up, capacity building is similar in style to some of the intended outcomes of project aid, and his understanding that aid cannot be completely eradicated immediately suggests that it does have some benefits in the short term. Perhaps there is scope for a bridge between certain types of food aid, such as pro-poor project aid, and the bottom-up development advocated by Easterly? Following his recommendations, a business approach to aid could change well-meaning but unsuccessful intention into a market-based corporate approach to development, giving customers what they want, when they want it, and at a reasonable cost.

Other critical aid scholars have further considered the negative relationship between foreign aid and poverty. Moyo (2009) argues that money from rich countries has actually trapped poor countries in a cycle of poverty. Hers is a reverse of the argument of Easterly: the poverty trap is far from being a myth; rather, it is a direct consequence of foreign aid, fuelling corruption and causing instability on a political, economic, and institutional level within recipient countries.

Nunn and Qian (2011) are not critical aid scholars in the same sense as Easterly and Moyo, yet they have highlighted three key issues with long-term project and programme aid. Each problem that they set out fits with under suggested hypothesis: food aid from the US (the largest provider of foreign grain) significantly increased civil war within the example countries. Taking a normative approach to the consequences of food aid, as opposed to a subjective one in the same way as Easterly, allows for a scientific analysis of cause and effect. The main arguments by Nunn and Qian (2011) are as follows. Firstly, food aid increases the volume of cheap food available, which in turn decreases the price of agricultural production and the income of farmers. Secondly, food aid can be a significant source of revenue for the recipient countries. Increased access to resources can lead to increased political competition, which, if not properly managed, can lead to increased conflict. Thirdly, in line with Easterly and Moyo, Nunn and Qian suggest that governments of poor countries have little incentive to deliver aid to the most needy.

Concluding Remarks

Criticism of aid has developed over many different spheres, from free market economists such as Easterly and academic individuals such as Moyo, to exponential scientists such as Nunn and Qian. Whilst criticism is healthy for the constant revaluation of success, most arguments concern economic aid as opposed to food aid. Indeed, many authors highlighted that emergency food aid is not relevant to their arguments because it is successful in the short term. However if, as previously noted, emergency aid makes up less than 10 per cent of overall food aid, what of the remaining 90 per cent? One of the most helpful conclusions to emerge from the well-trodden debate is that food aid is highly fungible and our understandings of it contextually are woefully incomplete (Nunn and Qian, 2011). Away from arguments over the effectiveness of foreign aid, the link between humanitarian assistance and hunger must be made more concise. There is a gap in our understanding of hunger in the modern world, between knowledge of its existence and feasible solutions to help its alleviation. If the clarity of aid effectiveness is blurred, maybe it is time for a new understanding of food and hunger politics to emerge.

The recognition of the void between our actions and our understandings of hunger leads directly to the final section of this project. Looking at the lives of the poor within a socio-cultural framework will allow for a detailed scrutiny of the way solutions to hunger are implemented. Chapter Three will highlight the importance of listening to the choices of the poor to overcome the failures of foreign aid. It is only through analysis of the patterns of local, national and global consumption that we will understand how there remains one billion hungry people in a world where millions of tons of surplus food are wasted each year.

Chapter Three: Food Consumption: Instrumental, Hedonistic and Symbolic Values

“A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But if a palace rises beside the little house, the little house shrinks into a hut.” Karl Marx (as quoted in Lipset, 1960: 3).

When asking somebody what it means to be poor, or in poverty, there are a variety of responses which we would assume they would reply with: ‘without food, without shelter, without money or employment,’ typical conceptions of poverty revolve around the objects or freedoms that a poor person cannot access. The international community tries to address these ‘withouts’ through a rights-based approach, ‘the right to food, shelter, employment, freedom of expression,’ and if rights-based approaches fail, aid-based institutions set in: the World Food Programme, the United Nations, domestic governments.

However, as Marx realised in the above quote, poverty does not always equate to rectifying simple ‘withouts.’ Sometimes it requires a far deeper response to the injustices of international society, to address the issues contained within its complex structure. Rights-based approaches do try to incorporate the language of justice; as shown in Chapter One, the UDHR is based on civil liberties and self-fulfilment for all. However, the doctrine bases its commitments on the Western idea of the ‘individual nomad.’ In this sense, it fails to take into account the human as an interconnected being who understands himself through his relationship with others.

Marx, a key critic of the individual rights based approach, was referring to this idea in his above conception of the house. Applying his metaphor to international poverty suggests that being poor is not always having limited access to food, shelter, employment. Rather, it is having limited access to these rights in a society in which others do not, be it within an individual family or community village, region or nation. One common finding from the food and nutrition research was that on the whole, a mother only considered herself as ‘very poor’ if she could not afford to feed her family. She might go without meals on a regular basis to allow her husband and children to prosper. Whilst women are recognised as facing severe injustice internationally, their kinship relations have not received similar levels of attention. When methods of international hunger alleviation rest firmly on misconceptions, it is unsurprising to hear that they do not achieve their aims, despite the most altruistic of intentions.

One of the biggest misconceptions in the food discipline concerns the idea of consumption, as its traditional theories can be understood to be highly westernised. Existing theories describe how an individual fulfils his needs through a market-based society which emphasises individualistic goals (Wong and Ahuvia, 1998). To understand consumption from a global perspective, the collectivist ideology of other cultures needs to be examined. The dominant approaches to hunger, as laid out in the first two chapters, do not take into account important differences in consumption. In Chapter One, the rights-based approach and the Millennium Development Goals were discussed and interpreted as having individualistic goals based on western rational assumptions which cannot be applied to all members of the international community. In Chapter Two, food aid was outlined as the dominant mitigation approach, working on the agenda of the normative right to food, to tackle world hunger. In a study conducted in 1983 and featuring the opinions of the French public, two thirds agreed with the statement that food aid is the best way to tackle hunger, and 59 per cent suggested that food aid should be increased (Sasson, 1990). Indeed, most donor countries are generally supportive of food aid, although whether or not the public would distinguish between emergency and developmental distribution programmes is uncertain (Norton et al 2010).

However, chronic hunger and under-nutrition still remain in the international system, despite the dominant approaches to their alleviation. As argued previously, Nunn and Qian (2011) suggested that our understandings of hunger and food aid are inadequate. Taking this a step further, Banerjee and Duflo (2011b) propose that the main impediment to this understanding lies with the lack of research into the relationships people have with food, whether directly as consumers or indirectly as members of a particular family, clan, ethnicity or nation. This chapter will look at these fundamental issues by focusing on consumption and collectivism and their impact on the choices of the poor. First it will discuss why a focus on choice and consumption is important. The main body will then go on to outline the three patterns of consumption as discussed in Wong and Ahuvia (1998); instrumental, hedonistic and symbolic values. Finally, it will conclude with a summary of the reasons why this approach is significant.

The Importance of Choice

The material aspects of poverty are well known; hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity remain core pillars to a diagnosis of poverty, and the supposition that ‘a poor person is one without enough to eat’ is a common understanding (Narayan, 1999). However, this concept draws upon two fundamental assumptions; first, it implies that the poor must eat as much as they possibly can, at least up to a level where hunger is satisfied, and second, it suggests that access to more food would allow a person to escape from abject poverty. Through the context of choice, both of these assumptions can be questioned.

Banerjee and Duflo (2011b) argue, for example, that if the poverty-trap scenario was the case, then the assumption that the poor spend all of their available money on food must be correct. Their examination of individual case studies has proved this to not always be the case. For example, from their close assessment of the lives of the poor, Banerjee and Duflo (2007a) found that the average poor person does not devote all of their expendable income to the purchase of food. In fact, the average poor person spends approximately 56-78 per cent of their consumption spending on food, and the rest contributes to hedonic and symbolic purchases such as alcohol, tobacco and festivals (p. 3).

Secondly, in the poverty trap scenario, food aid in the form of exported foreign grain would be an acceptable and comprehensive solution to hunger. Sachs (2005) suggested that a person offered food could become strong enough to work and therefore earn enough to sustain him in the long term, freeing himself from the cycle of poverty with one helpful push from outside. Indeed, this analysis underpins the majority of Western aid ideology; for example, goal 54 of the World Food Programme’s strategic plan (for the period 2008-2013) is “to help countries bring under nutrition below critical levels and break the intergenerational cycle of chronic hunger” (WFP, 2008: 25). However, studies have shown that when entitlement access is increased, people do not choose to stockpile more food to escape from poverty; they choose improved taste, better quality and increased variety (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011b).

Gabre-Madhin has commented that “happiness is the freedom of choice” (2007). If the poor do have access to food, but choose not to spend all their money on its consumption, then we must analyse why and how they make their choices. Returning to the idea that Western theories of consumption do not recognise cultural aspects, such as the importance of the interconnected self, Wong and Ahuvia (1998: 429) suggest that food has three different forms of value. First, it is recognised as a basic human need, an instrumental requirement for a satisfactory health status. This is the type of understanding that underpins the majority of the rights based approach to international hunger. Second, food has a hedonistic value in that when a person eats a delicious meal, it will be a satisfactory and pleasurable experience. This is recognised in a dominantly individualistic society as being an important value, as it gratifies the internal self. Finally, and most importantly for this study, food provides symbolic value. Here, Wong and Ahuvia (1998) give the example of steak, which, they argue, has symbolic reference as expressing masculinity.

Away from individualistic understandings, the interdependent self emphasises the role of public perception in appreciating one’s own identity. This proposition suggests that relative to western consumers, those from collectivist cultures will put more emphasis on the symbolic meaning of their possessions and less on the hedonistic values they provide. This chapter will now consider each of these values in more detail, relating their ideas back to those explained earlier in the project.

Instrumental Consumption

Clearly, food as a vital human need has intrinsic levels of instrumental value. Undernourishment has serious physical and mental effects on the human body, slowing down its reactions to compensate for the lack of energy. The World Food Programme (2012a) states that undernourishment is a less visible form of hunger, but one which affects many more people than the acute starvation that is regularly portrayed in the media. It can also have secondary effects, weakening the immune system and increasing susceptibility to disease. Those hardest hit are the weakest people, particularly the elderly and young children. In modern society, hunger levels remain high; indeed malnutrition is associated with over five million deaths a year in children under five years old (Caulfield et al, 2004). Increasing immediate entitlement access to high calorie food therefore seems vital.

However, focusing on the instrumental value of food can overlook other important elements of under-nutrition. The WFP (2012) suggests that on average, the body requires 2100 calories a day to sustain a healthy life, although this figure varies depending on age, sex, body size and physical activity. Whilst access to minimum levels of calories is vitally important, the rhetoric of international aid donors such as the WFP and the FAO appears to place a heavy focus on the value of calories at the expense of other contributory factors, such as a lack of protein, vitamins and minerals. Warnock (1987) argues that one of the most serious diseases faced by people suffering from chronic hunger, ‘Kwashiorkor’, is caused by a deficiency of protein, not an overall lack of calories.

In rural India, Deaton and Subrananian (1996) note that among grain, millet is the best ‘calorie for money’ option, yet only two-thirds of food expenditure is on this staple. The majority of the rest is on rice, wheat, sugar and salt. Sugar is known to be an unhealthy option, and Thomas (2006) notes that anaemia prevalence is highest in areas where rice is widely purchased. Granted, nutritional health education is somewhat limited, but even so, the poor are not spending all of their money on ‘calorie for money’ food. Returning to the original hypothesis of the poverty-trap, the poor should be consuming as many calories as they can to gain enough energy to break out of the cycle. If Deaton and Subrananian are correct, the assumptions which underpin the poverty trap are undetermined.

One suggestion as to why the poor do not eat as much as they could may simply be that people are less hungry (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011a, 2011b). For example, there is some evidence to show that improvements in water and sanitation have allowed people to minimise the loss of micronutrients through disease (Deaton et al, 2006). The hypothesis that hunger increases susceptibility to disease can also be reversed; one of the main contributions to hunger is the widespread prevalence of nutrient depleting illnesses, such as diarrhoea, measles and malaria- but even with healthy consumption of food, these diseases force ingested micronutrients to be shared with the internal parasites (Kates, 1996).

There also is some evidence to suggest that there has been a reduction in levels of disease worldwide. Indeed, major expansions in the availability of safe water and vaccinations have contributed to major improvements in global health in the second half of the twentieth century; between 1960 and 1995 for example life expectancy in low-income countries improved by 22 years (Prabhat et al, 2002). In addition, the start of 2012 saw the achievement of part of the Millennium Development Goal for water security: a 50 percent reduction in the number of people without access to clean water (UNICEF, 2012).

Another hypothesis is that people may be less hungry because of the decline in heavy physical work. Deaton and Dreze argue that in rural India, household calorie consumption per capita was on average 2240 calories in 1983, but only 2047 calories in 2005 (2009: 43), with the proportionate decline larger among wealthier sections of the population, and barely noticeable for the bottom quartile of the per capita expenditure scale. This fits with one explanation which suggests a decline in calorific levels runs alongside a decline in manual labour by the richer members of society. Away from manual labour, there are other examples of reduced levels of heavy activity. With the availability of drinking water in villages, rural women do not need to carry heavy loads for long distances. Even in the poorest villages, flour is now milled using a motorized mill, instead of women grinding it by hand. Deaton and Drèze (2009) suggest that the decline in calorie consumption over the last quarter-century could be entirely explained by a modest decrease in the number of people engaged in heavy physical work.

However, these examples do not seem entirely satisfactory on their own. The heavily manual agricultural sector does continue to dominate public employment in poor countries. Access to clean water for all is still a distant dream for many people, and major diseases are still rife, with nearly two and a half billion people still living at risk of malaria (Prabhat et al, 2002). An overall assumption that people are less hungry in modern society is much too generalised. Looking at the instrumental value of food alone does not provide sufficient explanation for why people do not spend more of their expendable income on food with a higher nutritional value, and so there must be other factors involved.

Hedonistic Consumption

Within approaches to international poverty and hunger the importance of internal pleasure, happiness and entertainment are hugely underestimated. Whilst poverty is material in nature, it has adverse psychological effects such as distress and insecurity (Narayan, 1999: 31). Hungry people will not only have to face the instrumental effects of pain and disease, they will also carry the burden of stigma and shame. Eating for pleasure appears to be an aspect of human nature which has been overlooked.

The rationale of the poverty trap assumes that access to more money equates higher levels of calorific consumption. However, Banerjee and Duflo (2011b) argue that, instead, more purchasing power leads to an increase in the consumption of better tasting calories. This suggestion underpins the idea that hedonistic pleasure is as basic a human need as access to food. Given access to money, the poor do not necessarily chose to have an increased quantity of the staple. Opposing the rational-actor assumption embedded within the poverty-trap, people are influenced by human factors: impatience, desire, procrastination and a lack of self-control.

Banerjee (2000) has argued theoretically that poverty might change behaviour either by making the poor desperate, or by leaving them vulnerable. Spears goes so far as to say that there may even be a causal effect which sees poverty depleting behavioural control (2009). Case studies of poor households in two regions of China and of a typical poor family in Morocco provide interesting examples (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011b). In China, a large subsidy on the price of the basic staple, wheat noodles in one region, rice in the other, was put in place. Rational economic theory expects that when the price of the wheat noodles and the rice was reduced, people would purchase more of it. Yet the opposite happened; households that received subsidies for rice or wheat consumed less of those two foods and ate more shrimp and meat, even though their staples now cost less. The likely reason is that the rice and wheat noodles were cheap but not particularly tasty. There might also be psychological reasons which revolve around the price; such as a stigma around the cheaper food, or a misconception that the more expensive food is better for them. Either way, the rational-actor theory is not proven. With the poor family in Morocco, their combined earnings did not allow them to provide an adequate amount of food to sustain them; however, they owned a television, DVD player, antenna and mobile phone. Their actions seem irrational if the instrumental value of food is considered as the most important need for him and his family, but in reality these non-food items were deemed more important. The increased frequency of pleasure that these items provide is more important than the intensity of pleasure provided by one full meal.

In this context, Ryan and Deci make a key distinction between hedonism and eudemonia. Hedonistic well-being is equated with happiness and pleasure (2001). Eudaimonism is the actualization of one’s own potential, and eudaimonic well-being suggests that whilst an action can be pleasure producing in the short term, its actions may not promote overall wellness. The link between impoverishment and eudaimonic effect has been examined by Ryff et al (1999). They found that many of the negative effects of a lower socio-economic status resulted from a direct comparison processes. If a poor person cannot access resources available to others of a similar status, then their overall subjective well-being levels appear lower. Fafchamps and Shilpi (2007) support this theory in their analysis of relative consumption, arguing that a person’s satisfaction can be increased from faring better than their peers. In an experiment concerning food consumption over a one month period, it was discovered that a household finds it consumption levels less adequate if it lives in an area where other households consume more. This relates to the third value, symbolism, which stresses the importance of social relations.

Symbolic Consumption

To understand symbolic consumption it is necessary to make a shift away from individualism, recognising that people compare their levels of need with the relativity of their counterparts. This could help explain the reluctance of the poor to buy cheaper foods in the China study; perhaps they felt an increased level of stigma coincided with the reduction of the prices of the staple. In an individualistic culture, people appreciate the value of self-gratification, and therefore hedonism is a motivational outcome. However, in collectivist cultures, the importance of the interconnected self heightens the value of public perception. This leads to a focus on ‘face,’ which in turn heightens the importance of symbolism (Wong and Ahuvia, 2004).

It has been suggested that a person’s satisfaction levels can be increased by faring better than his peers. But it is also important to note the significance of adhering to societal norms. It may well be that a poor family spends money on wedding or a festival at a level higher than that of which we would understand to be ‘rational’ in the Western world. Far from being ‘irrational’ however, the family might feel obliged to put on a show to save face and seem prosperous among its neighbourhood. Similarly, the frequency of positive experience as opposed to the intensity of the experience is deemed to be more important to overall levels of well-being (Ryan and Deci 2001). Attending a festival might well provide satisfaction for a family as something to look forward to, plan for and reminisce over.

An example highlighting the recent focus on symbolism can be found within one of the major aid programmes. USAID manages the largest government initiative directed at reducing hunger in the developing world, the US Public Law 480 Title II programme. Title II distributes more than one billion dollars of emergency and programme aid annually, and works alongside the World Food Programme to try and reduce food insecurity. Swindale and Bilinsky, (2006) suggest that the standardisation of measurement tools used by Title II have been a considerable support to the collection of information and have allowed for a consistency of results regarding the utilisation of food insecurity; including programmes such as maternal health, community growth and antenatal care. However, drawing up a standard set for measuring access to food has proven more of a challenge, because interventions vary on the context of the program. Swindale and Bilinsky have therefore tried to come up with a range of steps towards the standardisation of a universally-applicable tool to measure access, which takes into account cultural and contextual differences. One important suggestion they made was that adding a domain to capture shame, stigma and social unacceptability would increase their understanding of the emotional effects of food aid distribution programmes, particularly for the poorest families (p. 1451s). However, this in itself would be a challenging dimension to include because of the sensitivity of the topic. Further work would need to be carried out to ensure that questions about social acceptance were contextually and culturally specified, but it does show progress into the development of the idea that food has a symbolic value.

Concluding Remarks

To conclude this chapter, a summary of the main points is required to challenge the idea that being poor is not always being without food. The key argument highlighted that the dominant understanding of consumption sees the individual as the primary focal point, but this is a Westernised conception and is not always applicable. Through this view, instrumental consumption is considered standardised as it sees food as a basic human need. Indeed, this is the idea that the majority of aid approaches rest upon. Different approaches see the value of food as being more about fulfilling the mind, rather than the body; hedonism understands food consumption to be a pleasurable experience, and whilst an important concept to take into account, links primarily to the gratification of the individual self, which again is a Westernised concept. The most important focus for this chapter was the idea of symbolic consumption, as it is vastly underrepresented in food and food aid research, despite its important claims about human values. It suggests that food can conjure up emotions such as shame, stigma and social unacceptability, and therefore needs a broadening and deepening of research conducted around it.

Conclusion: Play and Feed Hungry People?

There are numerous approaches to the alleviation of world hunger. One present method, aimed at the general public and promoted by the World Food Programme, is a non-profit website entitled Freerice (World Food Programme, 2012b). It aims to end international hunger whilst providing a fun, educational experience for its users, asking questions on subjects such as humanities, mathematics and English literature. One correct answer amounts to ten grains of rice being distributed, through the money raised by the sites sponsors, to hungry people.

This project did not set out to analyse the ethics of injustice, the logistics of food aid or the position of the World Food Programme as the dominant provider of foreign grain. What it intended to achieve was a review of the dominant approaches to international hunger, through a focus on the human as an interconnected social being. Even the most egotistical among us would find it hard to argue that giving food to hungry people, the intention of Freerice, is not an illogical conception.

However, humans are neither logical nor rational beings. Many of us will never be faced with the crippling affects of hunger, the stigma of poverty or the anguish of not being able to feed our children. We will not understand the risks and burdens faced by a lack of social safety nets in terms of food, shelter and employment. We do not have to make the choice between quality or quantity of food, whilst the pressures of shame, stigma and stress hang over us on a constant basis.

Therefore, we cannot begin to challenge the problems of international hunger until we readdress our understanding of it. We must realise that we do not all exist as the rational, individually focused nomads as assumed within the dominant approaches. Freerice serves as an example of the challenges ahead of us. Even with the most altruistic of intentions it cannot go beyond its current status as another developmental website, because it does not recognise that food has more than instrumental value. The title of the front page of the site, ‘Play and feed hungry people,’ not only fails to comprehend the hedonistic and symbolic status of food, it inadvertently opposes it. Hungry people might be in desperate need of free rice, particularly in emergency situations. But they might not be. They might instead want free rice alongside an increased variety of food, quality, taste or nutritional content. They might not want any rice at all, particularly if it saturates the local market and increases the price of other staples.

Amartya Sen has spoken recently about the link between happiness and development. He argues that happiness is not always a satisfactory measure of poverty, as the poor can learn to accept their living situation regardless of the injustices that they face on a day to day basis (Sen, 2012). Unlike conventional economic theories which equate wellbeing with happiness, Sen suggests that wellbeing is more aligned with the values we hold most dear, whether they make us happy or not (Waage et al, 2010: 19).

Returning to the theoretical mother and chil, a situation in which she chooses to skip a meal to be able to feed her infant might not make her particularly unhappy, but it could be the tipping point to the detrimental outcome of her wellbeing. On the contrary, her happiness levels could rise with the realisation that her children do not have to go without, even if she herself is lacking the nutritional adequacies to escape from chronic malnutrition or deficiency.

‘Playing games and feeding hungry people’ does not equate to becoming intelligent and making poor people happy. If anything, it highlights the increasing gap between the recognition of international hunger and a true understanding of its causes and consequences. As George (1976) argued, instead of telling the other half how to live and what to eat, we would be best advised to examine our own understanding of what poverty and hunger means to those who live through it. It is only then we can begin to discuss strategies for its alleviation.

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—
Written by: Jennifer Panting 
Written at: University of the West of England
Written for: Dean McSweeney
Date written: 05/2012

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