Hunger, Poverty and Economic Development/ Module 7

What are the different ways that wealth might be distributed?

• Gifts/ sharing 

• Taxes & tribute

• Market = buy and sell

How was wealth distributed in traditional societies?

It was gifted to help even out the wealth = sharing helped maintain equilibrium

What book did Adam Smith write that helped lay the foundation for a market economy?

He wrote the Wealth of Nations 

What is “the invisible hand?”  What are the conditions that must be met for “the invisible hand” to function as a distributor of wealth?

“the invisible hand” = self-interested individuals can unintentionally benefit the wider public good through free market competition

Conditions needed = ppl must have money, open competition, means of enforcing control= good gov

What do we mean by “market externality"? What are types of positive and negative externalities?

Market externality = consequences that come when working in the market that are not in the cost 

Negative = pollution, hunger, illnesses, environmental destruction

Positive = new product uses, healthy effects

What is the difference between famine and hunger?

Famine-highly publicized crises where large numbers of people starve to death over a compressed period 

• triggered or worsened by war, civil conflict, government miscalculations, or climatic disruptions

• driven by sudden failures of entitlements = trunks food into commodities 

Hunger- daily, persistent insufficiencies in food and chronic deprivation

• goes largely unnoticed

• tied to chronic poverty, structural inequalities, land dispossession, and low wages

What parts of the world suffer the greatest problem with hunger and malnutrition?

Parts that suffer the most = Africa, Asia, Latin America

What are the three aspects of Food Security as per the World Health Organization?

Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis

Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet

Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as adequate water and sanitation

Why is swidden agriculture considered more sustainable than large scale agriculture?

Swidden is more sustainable = only land intensive, uses natural water, solar energy, only 25hrs of work requires only an ax or machete and 2 hoe or digging sticks.Natural Pest Management = cuz of multiple crops 

What factors led swidden agriculturalists to more intensive agriculture (technologies)?

Swidden ag more intensive (tech)= reducing or eliminating the fallow period

• Irrigation ag (tech)= also allows continual production on available land and the production on land that was unusable without irrigation 

• produce more food

• Pop growth 

• Food is now a commodity

• State Pressures = The Green Revolution

What are the advantages and disadvantages of intensive agriculture? How do they differ in resource use from swidden agricultural systems (labor, land, gender roles)?

Advantages of intensive ag =Higher Yields, Elimination of Fallow Periods, Reduced Human Labor Demands

Disadvantages of intensive ag = irrigation requires more water, labor, energy, more complex social, political structure, salinization, carrying parasites and insects, serve as a haven for weed, small farmers at a major disadvantage = need lots of money to keep farming, Extremely Poor Energy Efficiency,Environmental Degradation and Pollution

How did the arrival of capitalism affect agriculture? How did it affect households, use of rural labor, role of the government and relationship with urban labor?

• Food —--> commodity 

• Tech —--> less people need

• Need money to continue —---> wealth stays in a small group

• swidden ag = men clear the land and women burn the cuttings and care for the crops

• Today ag = women do most of the work/ domestic chores increases ag labor decreases (decreased women's economic power)

• Migration = find new jobs

• Forced on subsidized

What is the neo-caloric revolution? How did it impact the agricultural sector?

neo-caloric revolution = refers to the culmination of capitalist agriculture, characterized by a massive increase in the amount of nonhuman energy

• fundamental transition from traditional forms of agriculture

• neocaloric agriculture expends vastly more energy than it produces

impact the agricultural sector

• Loss of Small Farms

• Dependence of fossil fuels

• Displacement of Human Labor

• Environmental Degradation

What is the green revolution? What were its positive/negative consequences? What were problems in implementing the green revolution in developing countries?

• sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, aimed at developing higher-yielding hybrid strains of crops like wheat, corn, and rice

• heavily encouraged by the U.S. Agency for International Development 

Positive consequences

• dramatic increases in crop yields globally

Negative consequences

• High Energy Dependency and Cost

• Displacement of Small Farmers = migration

• Environmental Damage

Problems in Implementing it in Developing Countries

• Water Resource Shortages

• Lack of Resources/Capital 

What are the advantages of genetically modified crops? What are disadvantages?

Advantages of GMO crops =help feed the hungry, some crops included vitamins 

Disadvantages of GMO crops = potential long-term effects on the environment and the people who consume them remain unknown 

How do GMOs threaten the use of traditional seeds and local production?

attempt to fix problems that were originally created by capitalist agriculture itself, Natural diversity is destroyed.

Why is famine considered a political and market problem?

Famine is political and market problem = failure of "entitlements", frequently triggered, worsened, or mishandled by political unrest, war, and government miscalculations.

What does Amartya Sen argue that hunger is a failure of entitlements?

• physical shortage or lack of food in the world, 

• triggered by land dispossession, sudden unemployment, soaring food prices, or the lack, suspension, and collapse of state-run food security programs.

• hunger is an entitlement failure rather than a production failure, people can starve to death even when there is an abundance of food or a food surplus available in their region

In the case of the Northeast of Brazil, why does Nancy Scheper-Hughes argue that the problem of hunger has become a medical problem? What does she mean? Explain her case study.

In Malawi, what were the causes of hunger? Why is understanding women’s entitlements important? How did a change to cash crop production change women’s access to food?

• People go to the doctor due to hunger problems (dizziness, weakness, tremors, and fatigue) but they say that its an illness (nervos)

• official records rarely diagnosed or mentioned actual starvation / attributed deaths to heart failure, dehydration, or general illness

• given prescriptions for vitamins, tranquilizers, or tonics rather than food

• Infant mortality rates were exceptionally high (ranging from 17% to over 40%), driven heavily by malnutrition and dehydration.

• Brazil faced severe economic distress driven by sugar plantation expansions, land expropriations, and structural adjustment policies that stripped away social support programs. Sugarcane cutters faced massive unemployment for most of the year

• Starving people =  unjust Society = demands structural solutions like land redistribution or jobs.

• "sick" body implies no guilt or responsibility; illness "simply happens" to an allegedly weak individual.

In the book, Seeing Like a State discussed in Robbins, what does James Scott say are the two key problems with development? Why has it failed in many cases?

What is the informal economy? Why do many workers enter the informal economy?

Informal economy= income earned from them never appears in official government accounts

• (babysitting, auto repair, market gardening,unlicensed sweatshops, smuggling, corruption, and the massive global trade in illegal drugs)

Why work = Lack of Formal Jobs = migration / difference between poverty and destitution/ require little to no capital, no professional certifications, and offer a way to get by when formal employment is entirely inaccessible.

In the film The Global Banquet, what problems have affected the ability of countries to feed themselves?

What role do institutions like the World Bank and the IMF have in shaping food production in developing countries? How do the films/videos highlight how the IMF shapes food production in The Global Banquet and in Life and Debt?