tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813701770708442620.post7421120439124743267..comments2023-12-28T04:34:57.199-08:00Comments on G-FEED: The hunger strawmansolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00936469103707728475noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3813701770708442620.post-50756282531853125652014-11-25T11:11:41.931-08:002014-11-25T11:11:41.931-08:00I'm going to go out on a dangerous limb here a...I'm going to go out on a dangerous limb here and (very politely and respectfully) disagree with my advisor on this. I quite liked the Bittman op ed mainly because in my experience with the general public I've found most people believe food insecurity is due to a physical scarcity of food at the global scale. I'm invariably met with surprise when I explain that we today produce more than enough food to feed everyone a perfectly decent diet and that therefore increasing food production at the global level is neither necessary nor sufficient for reducing hunger.<br /><br />Of course there are connections between raising food production and reducing hunger. But re-framing the problem of increasing economic rather than physical access to food makes it clearer that in some cases raising production might improve food security, in some cases in won't, and in some (probably most) cases it will only do so in the presence of additional policies. And it also makes clear there are lots of opportunities to reduce hunger that don't involve increasing food production.<br /><br />So I was glad that Bittman took on what I think is a very common mis-conception among the American public. If I had to take a guess as to why this belief is so prevalent, I'd have to say the long history of framing some environmental problems in terms of absolute limits to production, over population, the carrying-capacity of the planet etc. I would say these themes are still pretty prevalent in the way food and hunger are discussed in public fora today and therefore a prominent and accessible counter-argument is generally a good thing, even if it does have elements of the strawman about it.Fran Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09442756030953968930noreply@blogger.com