It’s no coincidence that the first issue we will look at in detail regarding food security is that of hunger. The ultimate aim of our food security strategy is that all would have access to an adequate and nutritious food supply.

The dictionary definition of hunger is a “strong desire for food; weakness, debilitation or pain caused by a prolonged lack of food – starvation”.  It’s easy to forget that behind all the clinical definitions and statistics on global hunger, that this is about real people. We see the image of a starving child on television yet as soon as the image on the screen disappears, so too does our memory of it.

Every one of us has been hungry at some time or another – the sensation of hunger means we have an appetite. The hunger experienced by billions of people each day, however, is not merely an appetite that comes and goes – it is an all-consuming, debilitating, minute-by-minute, day-after-day experience.

Hunger – it’s the persistent, chronic, relentless condition that keeps people from working productively and thinking clearly. It decreases resistance to disease and can cause intense painful if death is pro-longed. At first the body will burn up fat and muscle as the bodies calorie and nutritional intake is reduced. On a prolonged scale, a hungry person’s body will start to consume its own vital organs – the heart, the liver and kidneys. A malnourished, unborn child is likely to develop physical and mental developmental problems. Prolonged hunger can result in permanent damage to the body and mind – ultimately resulting in death.