A story of hunger in Honduras
Ricardo Cabrera lives with his wife and seven children in a small hut in Marcala, Honduras. Cabrera sums up his life: "Yes, I am a poor man. Bastante, bastante, bastante (a lot, a lot, a lot)." To provide a meager living for his family, he works hard in the fields, along with his children. Half the year he works for the large landowners and half the year he works on his own farm growing food for his family and coffee to sell.
Ricardo says, "at the time I was born, people in the mountains were dying of hunger. I had three brothers and a sister; two brothers died of fever. My parents worked from six in the morning to six in the evening. It's the rich who don't work."
When he was 21 and newly married, Ricardo was drafted into the army. After taxes, food money, clothes and medicine were subtracted from his pay, he had only 25 cents a month to send home to his new wife. He has worked hard to get to where he is today, though he is still, as he says, a poor man.
"Make no mistake," Ricardo says. My people and I don't want any sweet music. We want our children to be educated, we want to know how to farm better. We don't want to be cheated"
Is it really possible to end hunger in the world?
Hunger does not exist because the world does not produce enough food. We have the experience and the technology right now to end the problem. The challenge we face is not production of food and wealth, but more equitable distribution.
It would take a modest effort to end hunger and malnutrition worldwide. Hunger is a political condition. And so the key to overcoming hunger is to change the politics of hunger. |
