Food is more than a magic word: There is enough food for all of us

摘要

Since ancient times, food is more than a magic word for human beings. Adequate food supply means not only freedom from hunger, but additional happiness, joy and leisure. For those, however, who are permanently hungry and as a consequence undernourished, it means pain and sorrow and quite often underdevelopment of body and brain. Freedom and participation in human rights means nothing to those, who have to spend all day in search for eatable items. When one has to spend 100% of the daily income for food, this results in no money for education, no leisure and no chance to improve living conditions for oneself and family. By contrast in rich countries a person only spends about 10 to 15% of his income on food. In the year 2006 nobody on earth should suffer from hunger, since there is plentiful for all of us, even if the human population grows to ten billions within the next 50 years. With conventional techniques in agriculture, food preservation and processing we can in theory feed not only the rich, but also the poor. However, large quantities of agricultural products are lost because of inadequate storage conditions, because of viral and bacterial infest and especially as a consequence of natural or man-made disasters.