Customer Reviews

Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty.

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A wonderful, readable, engaging treatise on the positive strategies for fighting hunger in a world of plenty. Basicall, the altruistic idea of "give a man a fish" does not work very well, despite its best intentions, especially if you are in the business of selling fish. Sound odd or ironic? Not really. When foreign aid in the form of free grain from American farmers arrives too late in a famine area, the local farmers are unable to sell their own product. What appears to be compassionate charity is clearly a deal to support American farmers and shippers and, perhaps only by chnace, starving Africans.

The "green revolution" started in Mexico and moved to Asia and then stumbled a bit in Africa. In Africa, the absence of the social and physical infrastructure needed to promote wealth-creating, modern, efficient agriculture had a hard time materializing. And foreign aid requirements that thwarted development, by insisting on premature free-market practices in a fledgling agricultural industry, only continued the problems while exposing foreign aid for what it is: government farm support for American farmers but not African farmers. Tens of millions, if not billions in aid was siphoned off by greedy African leaders and paid to shippers for carrying grain to Africa, grain that could have been purchased for much less locally and supported local farmers. It makes American accusations of "dumping" hypocritical at best, and life-thretening at worst.

Many of these case studies and stories have been published previously in the Wall Street Journal, so they will be familiar to readers of the Journal. And the authors conclude with some useful recommendations. It may seem surprising that such a compassionate treatment should come from bastion of capitalism yet, as more and more authors reveal each year, the solution to starvation in Africa is not more, free, American grain. The solution needs to be local and sustainable. "Enough" offers a bright light on the subject.

Half way through the book, you'll be mad as hell. By the end, you'll see some rays of hope.

Thurow and Kilman lay out the problem: a billion or so starving or malnourished people in the world, in spite of the fact that there is enough food to feed everyone. Then they describe the barriers to getting the food to the people who need it: greed, politics, good intentions gone awry, and infrastructure/technical issues. Finally, they describe some of the ongoing efforts to overcome or end-run the barriers, and they lay out what needs to happen for the great vision of Jesus in Matthew 25 - the least being fed - to come to fruition. An important read, yet an interesting read and an easy read.

There is a great deal of interesting (not to mention heart-wrenching) information in this book, but the gist of the argument is this:

Food policy for the last 30 years has more or less ignored agricultural development and food self-sufficiency. Instead policy has focused on moving poor countries directly to industrialization. With industries, the reasoning goes, poor countries can export goods and use their export earnings to buy food from rich countries, including the United States. We produce food cheaply, they produce goods cheaply. We get cheap stuff, they get cheap food.

The authors point out a number of problems with this approach. First, it tends to fail just when poor countries need it most. A few years ago, there was a dramatic escalation in the price of rice. Immediately, famine threatened poor countries around the world. Second, as programs helping poor farmers are cut back or eliminated, they often have little choice but to abandon their farms and become urban slum dwellers - or to emigrate legally or illegally. It's this dynamic that has driven much of the post-NAFTA immigration from Mexico to the United States.

The authors argue that we need to re-orient global food policy to help poor farmers and encourage food self-sufficiency in poor nations. They admit that the task won't be easy, and that other factors (war, corruption, and disease) also help create hunger. They also point out that our current policies are very convenient for powerful economic interests - not least large-scale farmers, global grain trading companies, and manufacturers seeking cheap labor.

The authors have been covering this beat for the Wall Street Journal for many years and are clearly both passionate and very well-informed. They are also excellent writers - if some of the subject matter weren't so grim, I'd almost be tempted to describe it as a "fun read." Highly recommended.

The Gates Foundation estimated that a sum of 20 billion dollars would be necessary to finance a food program in Africa to feed the hungry and help citizens and individual countries save themselves. So much more than that lofty sum has been spent on corporate bailouts , weight loss programs, and long, costly wars intended to save lives.

This book is not so much about WHY so many people in the world are starving at it is a documentation of the painful circumstances found around the world, how relief might be brought to these suffering regions (especially in Africa, and the programs and people who are trying to alleviate hunger in various ways.

Enough is a depressing book at times, yet the stories of those generous people and countries trying to make a difference give hope to the possibility of a different world in the future. One of the bleakest examples in the book is that of Zimbabwe driven to the brink of collapse by the governement of Robert Mugabe. A country once the breadbasket of southern Africa now is a net importer of food because of Mugabe's failed agricultural policies.

The fight against hunger is not hopeless; it is a battle that can be won, but it requires informed people to advocate for policy reform and new practices that work for the world's poorest, according to Wall Street Journal reporters Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman in this book. The book is a passionately worded argument against the systemic injustices that continue to cause preventable hunger.

The book starts with the story of Norman Borlaug, a scientist sent to Mexico in the 1940s to try to solve the crop losses caused by wheat rust. What he actually discovered was ways of rapidly breeding new highly-productive varieties of crops so that the same amount of land could produce much higher yields. Borlaug's techniques helped to feed the hungry in many countries and he was awarded the Nobel Prize. However, the book describes many different reasons why the green revolution has not yet brought food security to all.

In Ethiopia, the introduction of higher-yielding crops has actually contributed to food shortages. Abundant crops one year drove prices down below cost, so the next year less crops were planted and when a drought came there was insufficient food. Foreign aid has contributed to food shortages, with local farmers reluctant to plant crops they could not sell because of "free" food provided by aid agencies. The book tells many stories, each of which will make the reader angry but better informed.

Some of the ideas presented in the book seem inconsistent. For example, American farmers who provide food aid seem to be both heroes and villains at the same time. Not every reader will agree with all of the ideas advanced. Nonetheless, the book is highly engaging and no-one could disagree with the overall theme that the world needs to be doing a better job of ensuring food security for all.

If I had my way, a well-thumbed copy of this book would rest on the desk of every US Senator and member of Congress, and they'd be thinking about the issues the authors raise while crafting their policies.

America loves to talk about free markets (it's one of the features of the current health care debate, for instance) -- except when it's not in the national interest, as in agriculture. So we subsidize our farmers, enabling them to produce so much grain that we then have a vested interest in dumping as 'free' food aid it in Africa to meet any short-term supply shortfalls, when a more appropriate response would be to support grassroots efforts to develop new farming techniques, seeds and agricultural markets that would enable Africa to become self-sustaining on a regional if not always a local basis. "It's not in the interest of others to help us become self-sufficient," pronounces one Ethiopian in this book -- a claim that Thurow and Kilman prove beyond any reasonable doubt, then hold up to scorn and mockery.

Some of the contents of this powerful and damning book are tough to read -- there are the depictions of famine on the one hand, and the details of how agricultural markets and seed development function, which can become dauntingly complex, on the other. But the authors mix up the technical details with more than enough encounters with real-life players, from farmers in the developed world as well as Africa, to aid officials, scientists and others trying to change the system. We meet a woman who launches a commodities exchange in Ethiopia, and a new breed of seed salesman who works miles away from the nearest town and thus makes it possible for farmers to buy the latest seeds, tools and fertilizers and improve their yields with his advice and guidance. They point us to the most damning examples of foreign interference or indifference, such as the US political support for Egypt that has made it hard for drought-stricken regions of Ethiopia to dam parts of the Blue Nile to irrigate their fields -- all the water must flow north to the Delta, so that an Egyptian farmer's calves can take showers. They draw the link between hunger and other problems -- lack of education, HIV/AIDS -- and point out how solving hunger often is needed before philanthropists tackle other laudable projects.

This is simply one of the most powerful and chilling books about global issues I've read in a while. The authors follow where the facts lead them, not any ideological agenda, and report what their research and reporting shows them. The story-telling is powerful and the logic impeccable. The consequences of the distorted system that is still functioning today are downright chilling, not just on a humanitarian but a geopolitical basis.

A must-read book -- six stars...

Farm subsidies started out as a good way to protect hardworking US and European farmers against the vagaries of the marketplace and the weather. But they've morphed into a major reason why the developing world suffers regular, devastating famines. The effects of subsidies on commodity prices often mean that poor farmers, particularly those in Africa, cannot make any money selling their harvests, so they cannot buy the seeds and fertilizers they need to grow future crops. Without incomes, they and their families starve. In this revealing, shocking book, Wall Street Journal reporters Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman examine how - as they contend - practices by rich nations keep developing nations poor and hungry. getAbstract recommends this book to those who want to know why, in the 21st century, people still starve to death, and what's to be done about it.

I believe that this is one of the most important books written in the last decade. It should be on the must-read list of every business leader, politician, economist, journalist, philanthropist, and anyone else who values staying informed about key issues affecting our world.

As a comprehensive analysis of hunger in Africa and the failure of the world to make good on it's promise to eradicate this suffering, one would expect this to be a slow, difficult read. But this book actually reads very easily. Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman's writing is concise yet detailed. They make complex topics in public policy, economics, agriculture, and politics easily understood by the average person.

I challenge you to read even just the introduction and try to put the book down. After just a few pages, you'll be hooked...and motivated to start making a positive difference in the world.

Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman invest their considerable research and writing talents towards creating a comprehensive work on how to improve Africa's agriculture future and quality of life.

Thurow and Kilman tell the stories of Africans who are making a difference in Africa: Francis Pelekamoyo in Malawi, Caleb Wangia, Gregory Wayongo and Saleem Esmail in Kenya, Eleni Gabre-Madhin, Bulbula Tulle, and Chombe Seyoum in Ethiopia, and many others.

Thurow and Kilman ask us to get involved and follow the examples of Pat and Elaine in Alabama, the Rufenachts in Ohio, the students at Wheaton College, Peter Bakker in Holland, and many others.

I bought and read this book because I wanted to know. Specifically, I wanted to know what hell was the matter with Africa? What is the deal with this entire continent that I have been hearing about my whole life and that cannot seem to get on its feet even after so many years of attention and aid from the rest of the world? Why are there still millions of starving people in this land of potential plenty??

This book partially succeeded in answering my questions, but principally attacks these problems from a single primary perspective. The authors come off as suggesting that African agriculture is the 'be all, end all' for helping Africa. While increasing agricultural output may be the best way to solve these problems, and undoubtedly could be a strong vehicle for driving African economies out of poverty, the failures of agriculture in the past are certainly not the only reason Africa seems stuck in a rut. In fact, even more than drought and undeveloped markets or infrastructure, I think good arguments can be made that Africa's worst problems stem from politics. Whether its being caught in a tug of war between Communism and Capitalism, life under Apartheid rule in South Africa, wanton confiscation and redistribution of land in Zimbabwe, murder and rampage by Janjaweed in Darfur and Sudan, or simple mismanagement and corruption by any number of African dictators/rulers, civil strife seems to have led the way down the toilet bowl for most of Africa.

That being said, this is an excellent book about the past and present of African agriculture, and the hope that agriculture presents for the future of Africa's people. Well-researched and an engaging read, ENOUGH educates and inspires. Obviously, with such a huge topic as agriculture and focusing on such an enormous area, the book cannot cover every angle, but the authors do an admirable job of making the topic understandable. Providing many individual examples that reflect the general situation, the reader will come away feeling well-grounded and informed about the issue.

The first half of the book paints a very bleak picture, listing the horrifying facts about hunger and malnutrition in Africa, and discussing the many failed efforts of the past to combat these problems. Introducing Norman Borlaug (the father of the Green Revolution) and his successful efforts to improve agriculture in poor countries such as Mexico, Pakistan, and India through plant breeding, the book discusses the pitfalls and roadblocks that similar programs have had in Africa. It goes on to discuss whole arrays of both isolated and widespread problems that inhibit poor farmers from getting ahead. From water wars to undeveloped markets to poor farming practices to lack of education and the fear of trying untested methods when your life depends on yields, the obstacles facing African agriculture are indeed daunting. Half way through this book you almost start to feel like 'What's the use?'.

But then you get to the second half of the book (after some nice and informative black and white photos) and the tone takes a dramatic swing. Now you start to get the more recent stories of success, as public and private charities finally figure out good strategies for introducing sustainable and self-reinforcing agricultural development projects into Africa. Where government programs had generally failed, Christian charities and corporate-sponsored relief agencies seem to be making progress. Education and infrastructure development yield solid and visible results quickly, and you really get the feel of hope for the future (in stark contrast to the first half of the book). Western-style markets are beginning to take shape, where a farmer can get price guarantees before planting, and worldwide prices can be gauged and taken advantage of. Micro-loan banks begin making small loans available to poor individual farmers, suddenly making more modern equipment and higher quality seeds obtainable. As you start coming to the end of the book, you'll feel a lot more positive about the future, seeing the potential for massive and sustainable growth for some of the worlds poorest areas.

The authors do have a pet issue, and it comes forth in this book constantly. They relentlessly point out that sending American food aid to Africa doesn't only have the desired effect of saving people from starvation, but actually can negatively effect its intended beneficiaries. They argue that American subsidies to farmers and the US government's generosity with food aid actually hampers the development of food markets in Africa, as African farmers cannot compete with free, and as African people become dependent on world food 'welfare'. The authors claim that simply sending the money spent on food aid, instead of the actual food, would allow relief agencies to buy food from neighboring African countries and would be more beneficial to Africa as a whole. All of this may be true, but the fact is that American politician's first concern is getting reelected, not solving world hunger. And, American businessmen's first concern is making money, not solving world hunger. So while it may seem selfish, I don't think we can expect too much to change in regards to American food aid policy in the near future. Hopefully, we can reach the point where African countries become less dependent on American food aid in general, as the continent struggles out of its rut, and joins the rest of the world in 'plenty'.

One disappointing aspect of this book to me was the authors' failure to address the potential benefit that biotechnology could have for African agriculture. Because of Europe's backward and unfounded views on the dangers of genetic modification, most of Africa has been fearful of accepting the technology. This is an awful shame, as genetically transformed crops for insect resistance, drought tolerance, and herbicide tolerance are already available and could produce immense and immediate increase for Africa.

Also, the authors mildly discuss the detrimental effects that converting grain into biofuel has had on African hunger. To me, this is a very shortsighted standpoint. The whole point of this book is that the world is capable of producing plenty to feed all of its people. Why then, would we not be able to produce enough to also fuel our cars? Increased demand for agricultural goods should only be beneficial to Africa (especially its farmers) in the long term. By opening up whole new markets for agricultural goods, maybe African farmers will be able to get fair prices for their goods and really make serious strides toward self reliance. A minor complaint really, but while the authors didn't really spend a lot of time on this issue, it was still irksome to me.

The authors close with a call to action. They remind the reader that while much progress is currently being made, there are still millions of starving people that need our help. It is unconscionable to sit back and do nothing as our brothers and sisters, that happened to be born into such terrible circumstances where there is no opportunity, starve. Read this book. Educate yourself. And take whatever kind of action you can to help solve this problem.