There is a grate diversity of inequalities in our world. Inequalities are made of many different parameters. We have of course to discriminate between inequalities among states and inequalities inside states that is not the same. But let’s focus on inequalities among states at this international global level. And if we take into account these inequalities among states, we have also to distinguish between political inequalities among states which are less or more powerful, economic inequalities, social inequalities, natural inequalities and so on. These inequalities can be consider through the concept of Human Security, you know that UNDP distinguish seven human securities, that’s to say food security, health security, environment security, political security, cultural security, economic security and individual security. These securities are more or less achieved and when one of these securities is not properly achieved, there is a source of inequalities among states. Let’s give the priority to the food security. Why? For two reasons. The first one is that probably and certainly even food insecurity is the most relevant factor of disaster in our world, causing starvation as you know, but causing also political, social and economic instability. And the second reason is that food insecurity is revealing when we observe it, a lot of the main factors which are also working for the other insecurities. About food security, let’s first forget some common places. First of all, the earth, our earth is able to feed this 7 billion of people which are composing humanity. But it does it badly and this is the problem, it can but it does it badly. The second point that we have to take into account is that feeding capacity of our world has been multiply by 2,4 in 40 years, that is probably something really efficient, but pesticides, artificial fertilizers, deep ploughing, GMO are in the mean time more and more endangering humanity. Third point we count 800, 900 million starving people in the world. The same moment which is stable when however the global population is increasing. That is apparently the evidence that the situation has improved, and that’s true, in proportion starvation is fortunately decreasing. But Ladies and Gentlemen, by now currently 6 million people die of starvation per year. But also hunger make 2 billion of people handicapped or with very sever nutritive deficiencies. And that point starvation changes formerly it was rural, now it’s more and more urban and starvation in urban environment has political consequences that starvation in rural societies didn’t have. And starvation is more and more centered on one continent, that’s to say on Africa. If we say that, if we keep that in mind, we have 3 remarks very important remarks to make. First of all, starvation, hunger are economic problems, that’s to say the main factors of starvation is to be found in poverty. For a very simple reason, that’s to say poor people use about 60, 70, 90% of the family budget for food. If the price of food is increasing, they have just to reduce their own consumption. That to say first of all the source, the main factor of hunger is to be found in poverty. But it’s also, and that’s second point a political problem, that’s to say this poverty it itself related to a lack of willingness and to the misconception of global public policies. But it’s also a systemic problem. That’s to say, crisis in the South, that’s to say in countries which are suffering of starvation depends on change in the North and in the ways on consuming in northern developed countries. Let’s now focus on these factors of hunger in our present world. I will distinguish 7 factors which help to understand why our global world is not working well. The first one is as I mention the overconsumption in northern countries, that to say inequalities Ladies and Gentlemen, inequality is triggering starvation. In his life, a French man, like me, will eat 7 bull oxen, 33 pigs, 9 sheep, 60 rabbits, 1 300 chickens, this overconsumption implies massive importation of soya in our developed countries which is taking away from the southern consumption in order to provide for this overconsumption. France for instance needs its own area farmland multiplied by 1.6, China needs its own farmland multiplied by 2.5, Japan needs its own farmland multiplied by 7.1 and US by 1.9. That explains this process of land grabbing which is taking place in the world and which deprive especially African countries from a vital part of their own agriculture resources. The second factor is environment. Global warming, drought, desertification, create difficulties for promoting a modern agriculture in southern and developing countries. And this climate change is much more negative for developing countries than for developed countries. It creates new areas of farmland in Canada or in Russia, but it creates desertification in Sahel which is as you know one of the main factors of starvation in this part of the world. Third factor: urbanization. Urbanization obviously implies a regression of farmland in developing countries, and the transformation of the suburbs of the new towns which is pushing away farmland out of the main places of urbanization. Fourth factor: bio fuels which take every year about 100 million tons of cereals. Fifth factor: wars, political instability, bad governance, corruption. Sixth factor: global policies. It’s not very clear that the world could define the right global policies which would meet properly this hunger challenge. Especially, our global market is marginalizing small producers when small producers in developing countries are probably in the new division of labor the main factor of development and of reducing starvation. Seventh factor, may be the more critical is speculation. Keep in the mind for instance that rice price was multiply by 20% within 2 weeks in 2007 when rice is the main food for many poor people. We can imagine the consequences of this speculation. But the problem is that, if the price is decreasing the risk it the same, that to say in this case small producers are ruined, which is another factor of aggravation and worsening of this situation. Solutions are very difficult to find but however some countries could do the job. China now is almost no more suffering of starvation. And the same for Brazil after the famous <i>Fome zero</i> policy which was define by the president Lula Da Silva who gave his government gave voucher for food purchase to people in condition to send their children to school. And this program could cut the number of starving people by 20 million 99 to 2009. That why this issue is not a desperate one. But this issue will be really challenged if there is a political willingness to do that.
