By Mohan V Katarki
Zero hunger may sound metaphorical. However, as one of the seventeen targeted Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDG’) declared in 2015 by the General Assembly of the United Nations ‘Zero Hunger’ conveys the seriousness with which the global community has sought to address global food security and eliminate hunger by 2030. But where are we in 2025?
Let’s explore the concept and its achievability. Hunger is a primary economic problem. Amartya Sen, the welfare economist, views hunger primarily as a failure of entitlement rather than a lack of food. By saying that hunger is an entitlement failure, Sen has placed primary responsibility for providing food and the blame for its scarcity on the State. In India, it is said colloquially—“Mai-baap sarkar”! However, on a serious note, what Sen’s idea advocates is the rights-based approach as a preventive measure for achieving ‘Zero Hunger’.
The UN’s conception of ‘Zero Hunger’ conveys two sets of international obligations: Firstly, ‘Zero Hunger’ imposes an affirmative duty on the State to provide food and prevent hunger, starvation and death. Secondly, ‘Zero Hunger’ imposes obligations on the rich or developed nations to assist the poorer nations as a part of cooperation to provide food and to discharge their responsibility to eliminate hunger.
It places an affirmative duty on the State by attempting to enforce the obligations binding on the party States by Article 2(1) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 1966 (ICESCR) and achieve “progressively the full realization of the rights” recognized in the convention which prominently include right to be “free from hunger” and right to “adequate food” in Article 11 read with the earlier declaration in Article 25 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (UDHR); and in Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.
Secondly, it seeks to promote international cooperation by (i) enforcing the Food Assistance Convention of 2012, under which some 36 nations have undertaken to provide food to poor nations; (ii) realizing the objects of the World Food Program of 1961 (WFP) established by the General Assembly of the UN “to respond to food emergencies and help combat hunger worldwide”.
The human right to food as a precautionary measure to prevent hunger is jurisprudentially a part of socio-economic rights, including the right to water, health, employment, etc. These human rights are not mere freedoms, restraints or restrictions from interference with freedom. Within Hohfeld’s concept of rights, these human rights are the entitlements, claims, or demands against the State. Thus, the State needs to positively intervene to realise socio-economic rights.
A modern State cannot be oblivious to the welfare of its citizens. The welfarist approach dictates the States to empower people by providing access to the basic needs of life. Yet, initially, the provision of food by the State was considered a discretionary action, instead of being an obligation. Hence, food could not be claimed as a matter of right against the State. This changed in 1966 with the ICESCR’s adoption. The Protocol to ICESCR of 2009 further established a complaint and implementation mechanism making the entitlement a justiciable right (notably, India is not a signatory to the ICESCR).
The constitutions of several States do recognize the right to food, water, etc as a basic right or fundamental right coupled by claim over the State. The Indian Supreme Court has recognized the right to food as an enforceable constitutional right.
Section 27 of the Constitution of South Africa reads as follows:
“Sec 27. Health care, food, water and social security
(1) Everyone has the right to have access to –(a) health care services, including reproductive health care;(b) sufficient food and water; and(c) social security, including, if they are unable to support themselves and their dependents, appropriate social assistance.
(2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of each of these rights.
(3) No one may be refused emergency medical treatment.” (Emphasis supplied)
If the right to food is an entitlement or claim against the State, what is the extent of the State’s obligation to provide food? Socio-economic rights do not and cannot impose an absolute obligation on the State to implement them because actual implementation depends on the resources. Therefore, the obligation is to take steps for the progressive realization depending on the resources and financial capacity as clarified in Art 2(1) of the ICESCR. Along with progressive realization, a minimum core approach has also gained acceptability in recent times. The standards for each right on the minimum core may differ.
States are expected to take precautionary steps to provide food and prevent hunger or starvation. The food must meet a minimum standard in terms of nutrition and quantity. The State may not be concerned with an able-bodied man who invites hunger by refusing to work and earn his livelihood. If the hunger is due to reasons beyond his or her control, the State is expected to feed.
Among the reasons that are beyond the control is the lack of purchasing power arising from widespread unemployment. It may also include a lack of physical access to supplies in the areas affected by war and conflicts, natural calamities, famine, etc. It is also presumed that children and older people in certain marginalised or impoverished sections of the population suffer from hunger or are in need of food.
The WFP has identified six main causes of hunger. Some of them are conflicts, extreme weather, cultural norms, and food waste. The factual analysis of hunger is a complex exercise for welfare economists.
The prophetic words of Mahatma Gandhi – “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed” –sound true. The world produces enough food, but it is not reaching all. There is no shortage of food in the form of cereal or meat. The world has made great strides in farm technology to produce food. However, the world has been failing to provide access to food.
Simply put, we are nowhere near the goal. The international community has failed to promote and protect the entitlement to food. This is evident from the following bare statistics:
- The world produces enough food to feed all of its 8 billion people, yet 733 million people (1 in 11) go hungry every day.
- Hunger rates in Africa are especially high, with 1 out of 5 people going hungry each day.
- 2.8 billion people around the world cannot afford a healthy diet. That is about 35 percent of the global population.
- In low-income countries, 71.5 percent of people cannot afford a healthy diet. In high-income countries, that figure drops to 6.3 percent.
- According to the 2024 Global Hunger Index, thirty six countries suffer from ‘Serious’ hunger levels.
- The 2024 Global Hunger Index also rates hunger levels as ‘Alarming’ in six countries: Burundi, Chad, Madagascar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen.
- Since 2019, the number of people experiencing hunger has gone up by approximately 152 million.
- As of this writing, the Integrated Food Phase Classification estimates that 1.33 million people around the world are experiencing famine or famine-like conditions.
- Half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition.
- 9 million people die from hunger-related causes every year. Many of the fatalities are children under the age of 5.
Poverty in India is a historical fact, and it was further compounded by the population explosion in the twentieth century. Millions of lives were lost due to hunger during the great Bengal famine of 1943 – a chapter of our recorded history that has left behind an indelible, traumatic mark in our collective memory. The recent infamous Kalahandi starvation deaths in 2009 shook the public conscience.
In the 1960s, the Green revolution mitigated the emerging concerns around population explosion and a resultant wide-scale hunger crisis. The food production increased from less than 100 megatonnes before 1960 to 330 megatonnes in 2024 because of irrigation, fertilizers, hybridisation, etc. Despite this and improvement in the supply chain through the public distribution system, India was not free from hunger.
Realizing the seriousness and experience of hunger addressed in a routine bureaucratic manner, India took a major step to enact the National Food Security Act (‘NFSA’) in 2013. This transformative and historic step preceded the adoption of the ‘Zero Hunger’ goal by the General Assembly in 2015.
The NFSA guarantees the right food to the needy. Programs like the public distribution system have been given the responsibility to realise this objective. The goal of these policies is to ensure that people have access to affordable and nutritious food at subsidized rates. NFSA mandates food security to 75 percent of rural and 50 percent of urban households. It also provides for the Midday Meal Scheme and the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme. The other food security programs are: Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, PM Poshan Scheme, etc.
The people living below the poverty line need food. About 80 million people around the world, which is about 6.7 percent of the entire population, live below the poverty line of less than $ 1.25 income per day. In 2021, the World Bank reported that 84 percent of Indians lived on less than $ 6.85 per day. According to NITI Aayog, 14.96 percent of India’s population suffers from multidimensional poverty.
Hunger is inextricably linked to income inequality since it’s the lack of purchasing power that causes hunger. The seminal study by Nitin Kumar Bharati, Thomas Piketty and others, suggested that 1 percent of Indians have cornered the country’s net wealth. It concludes:
“We combine national income accounts, wealth aggregates, tax tabulations, billionaire ranking, rich lists, and surveys on income, consumption, and wealth in a consistent framework to present long-run homogeneous income and wealth inequality series going back till 1922 for incomes and 1961 for wealth. Our estimates suggest that inequality levels declined post-independence till the early 1980s, after which both top income and wealth shares began rising and have skyrocketed since the early 2000s. Trends of top income and wealth shares closely track each other over the entire period of our study, including the most recent decades. By 2022-23, top 1% income and wealth shares are at their highest historical levels at 22.6% and 40.1% respectively and India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and US”
The pandemic exacerbated challenges around hunger. Food supply became a serious issue for millions of migrants in India who decided to flee from cities back to their native villages. However, the timely intervention by the Supreme Court in ensuring food supply saved the situation. The Government claims that nearly 810 million poor and migrants got free food during COVID-19, which was a natural calamity.
The failure of the international community in 2025 to move towards achieving ‘Zero Hunger’ is significantly disappointing. A ‘World Hunger Summit’ to comprehensively address issues surrounding poverty and hunger is necessary. (IPA Service)
Courtesy: The Leaflet
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