7月3日（水） 17:00～ 東京大学 駒場キャンパスI 15号館104号室

Joel E. Cohen

(The Rockefeller University and Columbia University )

Is the concept of human carrying capacity useful for understanding why so many people are chronically hungry?

About 800,000,000 people are chronically undernourished (more than 1 person in 10). More than 22% of children under 5 years old are stunted from chronic undernutrition, and undernutrition contributes to nearly half of all deaths of children under 5. Yet the world grows far more cereal grains than are required to feed all people all the calories they need. Only 42% of the cereal grains grown are used to feed people. The gap between vast production of cereal grains and widespread chronic hunger arises because poor people, especially children in poor countries, lack the money to compete with richer people who buy the grain to feed animals or machines. I will examine whether "human carrying capacity" is a useful concept for understanding why so many people are chronically hungry. I will review alternative analyses and present one possible course of constructive action to end chronic undernutrition.