Ending Hunger in Our Lifetime: Food Security and Globalization

Ending Hunger in Our Lifetime describes the world hunger challenge in the globalizing world of plenty. It proposes sustainable solutions to world hunger. The problem about hunger is that it creates food insecurity, which ultimately implies diminished investment in human capital. Low human capital stock, and arguably its productivity, will threaten food production worldwide and food shortages will eventually induce the prices of all scarce resources to increase. Whereas fossil fuels are the backbone of an object-intensive economy, food security is the backbone of an idea-intensive economy (liberally paraphrasing Paul M. Romer here). As food prices rise, disposable income falls, and social welfare suffers, as there is an inverse relationship between measures of well-being such as GDP, HDI, PQLI, and poverty. To end hunger we must produce more stuff and distribute them better. More production damages the environment, making us even more insecure. Only science (not pseudoscience) holds out a promise for rescue. Successful science requires new and better institutions. Moreover, here is where the rubber burns when it hits the road: this institutional change will need stronger investment in hunger-solving projects than before. All this can happen only if humans really want it done. [...]

I liked this book because it shows there are still some economists who can write clearly about issues in the real world without geting bogged down in jargon or hung up on abstract theories. This is not a casual read, but the analysis and writing are very clear and accessable to any intelligent person who might be interested in world hunger, food security or food trade issues. It was also nice to see a university press willing to include photos taken by Sebastiao Salgado, who I think is the world's gretest living photographer.

As a student of international health policy, I found this book contributed greatly to developing my own perspective on the plight of global hunger and the issues surrounding food security policy. It was an interesting read, easy to comprehend, and very well written. I recommend it not only to students, but anyone with a desire to become more aware of the important issues regarding the world's hunger. 5 stars!