Objective of the Website

There are around 800 million persons suffering currently from chronic hunger. This large number includes far more people than those who can be seen on the international media at times of crises which may increase dramatically the number of hungry.   

1. How is it possible that, in a world richer than ever and with the most sophisticated technologies, so many people live in such an inacceptable situation which violates the most fundamental human right, the right to food? (More on facts and figures on hunger in the world...)
   

Hunger is man-made. It is the result of the power structure existing among actors involved in food and agricultural issues (More on actors and issues...). Food security, which is often mentioned in the press, has multiple dimensions that must be well understood if appropriate action has to be taken (More on food security and its factors).

Agriculture has been historically prone to periodical crises which have translated into famines. Since antique times, literature is full of references to famines. The European Middle Ages were characterized by a series of famines, including those which preceded the French Revolution  of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 and which have often been pointed to as one of their causes, if not the main one.

Modern food crises are of a very different nature than those of the past. They are no more so much crises of availability of food, as there is sufficient food today to meet the needs of the 8 billion people living on our planet. Possibilities also exist to satisfy future needs of a population estimated to reach almost 10 billion by 2050. Today’s crises are crisis of access to food by masses of people living in poverty (More on food crises...) and of sustainability (economic, social and environmental).

1. The ambition of this site, created in June 2013, is to try and inform on the food and agricultural issues and to debunk related myths so that the honest citizens of the XXIst century that we are, are able to better understand the world around us and act in order to change it and make a reality of the utopia of a world without hunger.
   

Who benefits from hunger? Which mechanisms contribute to perpetuate it? What should change for hunger to really decrease and be finally eradicated? How can food systems be made more sustainable and climate friendly?. This site also analyses successive food crises and demonstrates that they are results of human decisions, not of fatality, and that it is possible to avoid such dramatic events in the future. Finally, it tries to challenge some of the prevailing misconceptions on hunger.

Based on facts, this site uses its author’s experience of more than three decades in international cooperation in the field of food and agriculture (More on the author...). Starting from the analysis of the world food system and its dynamics, it attempts to make a synthesis of the experience of a life and of the results of the last analyses and research conducted in this area. It adopts a language designed to be accessible to all. In doing this, it should offer some venues to transform a necessary utopia into reality.

Finally, it aims at keeping readers informed on key news relating to food and agriculture and gives the floor to diversified opinions on important topics.

Materne Maetz

(June 2013)

(updated January 2023)