World Hunger: Twelve Myths (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author), Peter Rosset (Author), Luis Esparza (Author) "MYTH: With food-producing resources in so much of the world stretched to the limit, there's simply not enough food to go around..." (more)
Key Phrases: pesticide treadmill, ending hunger, big growers, United States, Green Revolution, Central America (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In this completely revised edition of the classic on world hunger, three experts on food and agriculture expose the myths that prevent us from effectively addressing the problem. Written in a straightforward, easy-to-read style, "World Hunger" shakes many tenaciously held beliefs and strives to convince readers that by standing together with the hungry we can advance not only humanitarian interests but our own well-being.

From the Back Cover

The Revised and Updated Edition of the Classic on World Hunger from the Internationally Recognized Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First.

The completely revised Second Edition includes:

o Substantial new material on hunger in the aftermath of the Cold War

o Global food production vs. population growth

o Changing demographics and falling birth rates around the world

o The shifting focus of foreign assistance in the new world order

o Structural adjustment and other budget-slashing policies

o Trade liberalization and free trade agreements

o Famine and humanitarian interventions

o The Third Worldization of First World nations

In this completely revised and updated edition of the most authoritative book on world hunger, three of our foremost experts on food and agriculture expose and explode the myths that prevent us from effectively addressing the problem. Drawing on and distilling the extensive research of the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First), Lapp, Collins, and Rosset examine head-on the policies and politics that have kept hungry people from feeding themselves around the world, in both Third and First World countries, as well as the misconceptions that have obscured our own national, social, and humanitarian interests. Written in a straightforward, easy-to-read style, World Hunger: Twelve Myths shakes many tenaciously held beliefs; but most important, it convinces readers that by standing together with the hungry we can advance not only humanitarian interests, but our own well-being.

"World Hunger addresses problems of enormous human significance with valuable and often surprising information, much insight, sound common sense, and fundamental decency. It should become not only a book for study, but a guide to action."-Noam Chomsky, MIT

"A marvelously lucid message: the most important cause of death and disease is hunger; the remedy is food; the remedy exists. Their message swiftly demolishes the myths and powerfully arms us for the political task of ending hunger, here and throughout the world."-Dr. Barry Commoner

Frances Moore Lapp is the author of twelve books including the international bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, and co-director of the Center for Living Democracy in Brattleboro, Vermont. In 1975, she and Joseph Collins founded the Oakland-based Institute for Food and Development Policy. Dr. Collins' many books include Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, and Aid as Obstacle: Twenty Questions About Our Foreign Aid and the Hungry (both with Lapp, as well as No Free Lunch: Food and Revolution in Cuba, and Chile's Free Market Miracle: A Second Look. An author, lecturer and consultant on international development issues, Collins makes his home in Santa Cruz, California. Peter Rosset is the Executive Director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Dr. Rosset's many books include A Cautionary Tale: Failed U.S. Development Policy in Central America, The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment with Organic Agriculture, and Agroecology. Dr. Luis Esparza is a Geographer from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 2 Sub edition (September 24, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802135919
• ISBN-13: 978-0802135919
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #98,173 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The truth will come out, September 1, 1999

By A Customer

This book tells it like it is. There are myths about world hunger. Some are plausible but not true. Others are so clearly silly once you think about it that the author, represents the lad in "The Emporer's New Clothes."

He says to Monsanto, for example, your claims of genetic seed stopping world hunger are bogus because world hunger is worsened by your products. To Archers Daniel Midlands big agribiz company's proclamations of helping end world hunger, another "Balogna." You see, there are so many poor farmers all over the world who need to feed local people using simple methods that have worked for thousands of years. Both the chemical companies and other agribusiness firms make hunger worse by enabling practicies that undermine the little guy feeding the poor. Instead, the practices make "First World" investors rich on the backs of the "Third World" farmers and people.

This book is one you've got to read if you care about world hunger. It is well researched and well written about the myths of world hunger.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent resource, May 16, 2002

By	Paul Lappen (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: World Hunger: Twelve Myths (Paperback)

Over the years, many myths have emerged about the subject of world hunger. People think that if this or that should happen, hunger will disappear, and no longer will westerners have to look at pictures of starving babies in Africa. This book explodes many of those myths.

Some people think that population (or overpopulation) is the problem. Others think that there simply isn't enough food available, or that nature, with her floods and droughts, is the culprit. Still others think that the solution lies with free trade, or letting the market provide, or with the Green Revolution, with its heavy emphasis on pesticides and other chemicals. Other possibilities are that the poor are simply too hungry to revolt, or that the US should increase its stingy foreign aid budget.

The authors place the blame elsewhere. All over the world, there has been a huge concentration of land in fewer and fewer hands, forcing poor and middle-class peasants off the land (in the US, witness the decline of the family farmer). Structural adjustment programs from places like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (part of the requirements when asking for a loan) require a country to reorient its agriculture toward items that are easily exportable rather than items that can feed their people. Another requirement is the removal of internal tariffs and other barriers to the import of grain and other foodstuffs. It results in a flood of cheaper (usually American) agricultural products reaching the market, driving local farmers out of business. The countries that one thinks of when hearing "famine" actually produce enough food to feed their people. The only problem is that much of it has to go overseas to help pay the foreign debt.

This book is excellent. It presents a potentially complex subject in a clear, easy to understand manner. It contains a list of addresses to contact for more information, and is a great activism reference.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable, Illuminating, Empowering, September 14, 2002

By	matt vargas (Tallahassee, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

World Hunger: Twelve Myths clearly identifies the root causes of hunger as stemming from inequity and lack of true democracy, dispelling entirely the common belief that inadaquate food production is to blame. In their plain spoken and positive eloquence, the authors overwhelmingly succeed in conveying otherwise dauntingly complex global social and economic dynamics that contribute to world hunger and how each must be changed to honestly address the plight of the poor.

World Hunger: 12 Myths should have a permanent home in school curricula, libraries, and in the hands of people of all ages wishing to better understand and improve the world in which they live.