The world screams of hunger

They were warming themselves against the freezing cold of the morning. After the general introduction, he started to tell that there is a shortage of cotton because he has been working as an agricultural laborer for the landlord for generations. I didn't understand

when I heard it. Because in the village of the eastern hills where I was born, I knew that it was difficult to farm without finding people to work. People of Musahar Basti were expressing their grief of not getting farming jobs. While talking, it was understood that the landlords have started using modern agricultural tools like tractors in the fields.

When the local level started giving subsidies, fish ponds increased in the land used for rice cultivation. After this, the demand for workers who plant, thresh, cut, and chop rice will decrease. After the demand for workers decreased, the main basis of their livelihood, agricultural labor was in crisis. They do not have their own land in Juprachhapra. Opportunities for subsidized agricultural implements and fishponds are far from accessible. Not only from Garhatol, studies have shown that more than 90 percent of the Musahar community living in Ailani lands are squatters.

The modern agricultural system reduced the cost of labor for the landlord. As the demand for agricultural labor of Mushars decreased, the way of earning income was closed. With a low literacy rate, the Musahar community has very few other career options. According to the article on 'Dhanushaka Musahar and Vegetation', Musahar prefers to eat fish, snails, snails, mice and birds in addition to traditional farming. But now it is less common in rivers and forests. Environmental changes and modernization that only capitalists have access to are unwittingly exploiting the marginalized classes who depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. The inequality gap is widening.

The debate on food activists at the 16th World Social Forum conference held in Kathmandu recently led me to the same dilemma. The Bangladeshi speaker, a food rights activist, expressed his concern that food insecurity and inequality are increasing when the government does not include those who cultivate khoria in the agricultural census and deprive them of subsidy facilities. This is the fate of the Musahar community of Garhatol. Most of them do not have paddy cultivation.

Representatives of civil society and social organizations from 98 countries discussed the issue of capitalism dominating the world's poor, poor and weak in the conference. In the debate, discussion and interaction on 'Agriculture and Food Sovereignty and Natural Resources', there was a global hunger cry like Sarlahi's strike. There were South Asian and global discussions and debates on food security, agriculture that can cope with climate change and its effects, food sovereignty, maternity protection of women workers in the agri-food sector, agricultural reform and farmers' rights.

'No gender justice without food and climate justice' i.e. gender equality is not possible without food security and climate justice. In the 21st century, every human being should be free from hunger. Nepal has guaranteed the right to food in its constitution. The Right to Food and Food Sovereignty Act 2075 has given every citizen the right to have regular access to sufficient, nutritious and quality food without discrimination, to be free from hunger, and to be protected from life-threatening conditions due to lack of food. All member states of the United Nations, including Nepal, have committed to ending hunger by the end of 2030, improving food security and nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture under the Sustainable Development Goals. There are 193 member countries in the United Nations. There are only 7 years left to achieve the goal they set in 2015.

The world is facing climate change. Growing population and industrialization are unnaturally increasing climate change. Climate crisis has negatively affected crops and livelihoods. Agricultural production has declined due to irrigation problems. Food has become expensive. Starvation is likely to increase. Disaster risk is getting higher. Floods have caused huge damage in Pakistan. Nepal also has the same fate. Construction of residential areas on agricultural land has increased. The land mafia is grabbing agricultural land and natural resources. Exploitation of natural resources is increasing in the name of development. Due to the hydropower project, the profession of fishing is disappearing. This is not only the ancestral profession of the Majhi community is in crisis, their school children's income to buy a copy-pen has also been taken away.

The United Nations World Food Program has revealed in studies that conflicts, economic crises, climate change, extreme weather changes, heavy rains, cyclones, storms, droughts and rising prices are causing food insecurity. Currently, 783 million people around the world are facing severe hunger. They don't know where the next meal is coming from. Due to hunger, the magnitude of the crisis of malnutrition among women, children, adolescents, pregnant and lactating women is huge. According to the World Hunger Index Report 2023, which evaluates and monitors hunger at the global, regional and national levels, despite some improvement in food and nutrition in the world compared to the previous year, 43 countries are still facing severe hunger. A food study published by the World Bank at the end of January 2024 estimated that by 2025, the number of people facing severe food insecurity worldwide would reach 943 million. If central banks do not tighten inflation control, 956 million people around the world are projected to be severely food insecure by 2028.

The United Nations World Food Program has estimated that hunger will be high due to conflicts in Burkina Faso, Mali, South Sudan, and climate change in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Eastern and Southern Africa. Similarly, there is a risk of food insecurity in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, Yemen and other countries. Only recently (from November 2023 to January 2024), 2.2 million Pakistanis, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, faced starvation. During the last monsoon, heavy rains, lightning and storms caused damage in various parts of Pakistan including Pakhtunkhwa.

Humanitarian aid is needed in the short term to avoid starvation and death. Sustainable solutions for food security and climate risk mitigation should be implemented. It is necessary to stop violent activities and conflicts. Administrative and political politics should end. In terms of climate justice, members of the United Nations should work towards the goal of ending hunger by giving priority to marginalized, minority, poor, weak, Dalit, tribal, disabled, gender and sexual minority communities. As food activists from less developed to developing countries unitedly said in Kathmandu, there should never come a day when a mother has to teach her child to go to bed hungry.