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World hunger 2019 update

I often try to frame data in a global context. When I think about if the world is better or worse, I use numbers to get me answers. I try to take numbers from reliable sources, but I'm not a research fellow or looking to publish journal articles.

In the early 1980's, however, as economic growth slowed in the industrial nations, increasing the poverty of the developing nations, the pool of hungry people grew at a rate of nearly eight million a year, reaching 512 million in 1985, according to the World Food Council. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/28/world/world-hunger-found-still-growing.html

There were 4.846 billion people in the world in 1985 https://www.google.com/search?q=world+population+1985

There are 7.7 billion people in the world in 2019 https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

There were 7.3 billion people in the world in 2017 https://www.google.com/search?q=world+population+2017

After steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger is on the rise again, affecting 815 million people in 2016, or 11 per cent of the global population, says a new edition of the annual United Nations report on world food security and nutrition released today. At the same time, multiple forms of malnutrition are threatening the health of millions worldwide.

The increase – 38 million more people than the previous year – is largely due to the proliferation of violent conflicts and climate-related shocks, according to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 https://www.wfp.org/news/world-hunger-again-rise-driven-conflict-and-climate-change-new-un-report-says

  • 32 years years saw a population rise of 2.454 billion people and a rise of 303 million in world hunger.

  • 10.56% of the world was known to be hungry the year before I was born

  • ‭11.16% of the world was known to be hungry by 2017

  • 0.59% more people are hungry over the past 32 years

  • 33.61% change in population over the past 32 years

Nearly a third of a century has seen the introduction of internet, wifi, better living standards, access to technology and education in the part of the world I am from; where we don't regularly see 11% of people starve to death. Power is a thing of plenty. It cannot be right that 815 million possible Einstein, Currie, Lovelace, DaVinci, Nightingale, De-Grasse Tyson's of the future die needlessly, unable to attain the most basic of needs and dignity.

I wish I had answers for this. I hope that lab-grown meat, advances in agriculture, GM, improved education and equality can help.

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