以全球視角關注糧食短缺問題

This week’s declaration of famine in parts of South Sudan shows that while lettuce and courgette shortages in Europe captured media attention, it is important to keep things in perspective. The rest of the world continues to fight lasting food imbalances caused by extreme weather, wars and regime changes, and other geopolitical shocks.

南蘇丹部分地區最近宣佈遭遇饑荒表明，在歐洲的萵苣和小胡瓜短缺廣受媒體關注之際，我們有必要清醒地面對現實。世界其他地區還在繼續與極端天氣、戰爭、政權更迭及其他地緣政治衝擊造成的持續性食物短缺抗爭。

In the 20th century, 70m-80m people died as a result of major famines. Before 1965, 66m people died because of nine famines in the then Soviet Union, India and China, notably in Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward”. But in the latter part of the century, food crises became more concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa; 34 out of 65 famines were in this region.

上世紀，大饑荒導致了7000萬至8000萬人口死亡。1965年前，約6600萬人死於在當時的蘇聯、印度、中國爆發的9場大饑荒，尤其是在毛澤東發動的“大躍進”期間。但在20世紀後半葉，糧食危機更集中地出現在撒哈拉沙漠以南非洲地區；全球65次饑荒中有34次發生在這一地區。

However, the scale of individual famines has steadily diminished thanks to better infrastructure, increased international intervention and the use of genetically modified crops.

然而，因爲有了更好的基礎設施、更多國際干預以及轉基因作物的利用，單次饑荒的規模已經大幅減小。

Vulnerability to famine has been virtually eliminated in the rest of the world, with the exception of North Korea. Hunger also continues to take its toll in South Asia while Latin America has the most successful record in the developing world in increasing food security.

除了朝鮮之外，世界其他地區對饑荒的脆弱性幾乎已經消失。飢餓仍在南亞造成人口死亡，而拉美在提高糧食安全方面擁有發展中世界最成功的紀錄。

Yet problems persist. Some 795m people suffer from chronic undernourishment, including 780m in developing countries. Although there has been improvement, the least progress has been made in Sub-Saharan countries, where more than one-in-four remain undernourished.

然而，問題依然存在。全球約7.95億人正遭受慢性營養不良，其中7.8億居於發展中國家。雖然有所改善，但撒哈拉沙漠以南非洲國家取得的進步最少，這些國家超過四分之一的人口仍處於營養不良狀態。

Venezuela is still in the grip of a worsening crisis of food shortages, political repression and crippling price rises, teetering on the brink of hyperinflation. Polls show most Venezuelans believe the country is mismanaged as they confront daily shortages of food and medicine, rising crime and triple-digit inflation. Venezuela imports almost everything, paid for with shrinking oil revenues.

委內瑞拉仍深陷一場不斷惡化的危機——食物短缺、政治鎮壓、物價暴漲——即將墜入惡性通脹。民調顯示，多數委內瑞拉人認爲是這個國家管理不善，導致他們不得不面對日常食物和藥品短缺、犯罪率上升和高達三位數的通脹。委內瑞拉幾乎一切都需要進口，靠不斷萎縮的石油收入支付。

This week a famine was declared in parts of South Sudan, the first to be announced in any part of the world in six years. The government and the UN report that some 100,000 people are facing starvation, with a million more on the brink of famine caused by civil war and economic collapse.

最近，南蘇丹部分地區宣佈遭遇饑荒，這是6年來全球首個宣佈遭遇饑荒的地區。南蘇丹政府和聯合國報告稱，約10萬人正面臨饑荒，還有100萬人處於內戰和經濟崩潰造成的饑荒的邊緣。

Aid agencies, including the UN World Food Programme, and the children’s fund Unicef, said that 4.9m people — more than 40 per cent of South Sudan’s population — urgently need food.

包括聯合國世界糧食計劃署(UN World Food Programme)和聯合國兒童基金會(Unicef)在內的援助機構表示，約490萬人（超過南蘇丹人口的40%）亟需食物。

To confront global imbalances in the long term, the World Bank says the world needs to produce 50 per cent more food to feed 9bn people by 2050, but climate change could cut crop yields by over 25 per cent. It says land, biodiversity, oceans, forests and other forms of natural capital are being depleted at unprecedented rates.

要從長遠角度應對全球失衡，世界銀行(World Bank)稱，到2050年，全世界需要多生產50%的糧食來養活90億人口，但氣候變化可能使農作物減產25%。世行表示，土地、生物多樣性、海洋、森林和其他形式的自然資源正在以前所未有的速度耗盡。