[MUSIC] There is a great diversity of inequalities in our world. Inequalities are made of many different parameters. We have, of course, the discriminate between inequalities among states and inequalities inside states. That's 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 considered trough the concept of human security. You know that UNDP distinguished seven human securities, that's to say food securities, health securities, environment security, political security, cultural security, economic security, individual security. And 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 commonplaces. First of all, the earth, our earth, is able to feed these 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 multiplied by 2.4 in 40 years. That is probably something really efficient. But, but, pesticides, artificial fertilizers, deep GMO are in the meantime more and more endangering humanity. Third point, we count 800, 900 million starving people in the world. The same amount 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 6,000,000 people die of starvation per year. But also hunger makes two billion of people handicapped or with very severe nutritive deficiencies. And last point, starvation changes, formerly it was rural. Now it's more and more urban. And starvation in urban environment has prodigal 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 three remarks, very important remarks, to make. First of all, starvation, hunger, are economic problems. That's to say the main factor 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's to say, first of all the sole, the main factor of hunger is to be found in poverty, but it's also as my second point, a poverty problem. That's to say this poverty is itself related to their lack of willingness, and to the misconception of global public policies. But it's also a systematic problem. That's to say prices in the south as to say, in countries which are suffering of starvation, depends on change in the news and in the ways of consuming in northern, developed countries. Let's now focus on these factors of hunger in our present world. I will distinguish seven factors which help to understand why our global world is not working well. The first one is, as I mentioned, overconsumption in northern countries. That's to say inequality ladies and gentlemen. Inequality is triggering starvation. In his life, a Frenchman like me, will eat seven [INAUDIBLE]. 33 pigs, 9 sheep, 60 rabbits, 1,300 chickens. This overconsumption implies massive importation of soya in our developed countries which is taken away from the southern consumption. In order to provide for this overconsumption, France, for instance, needs it's own area of 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 deprives, especially African countries from vital parts of their own agricultural resources. The second factor Is environment. Global warming, drought, desertifications, create difficulties for promoting a modern agriculture in thousand 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 desertifications [INAUDIBLE] 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 farmlands in developing countries. And the transformation of the new towns which is pushing away farmlands out of the main places of urbanization. Fourth factor Biofuels, biofuels which take every year about 100 million tons of cereals. Fierce factors, wars, 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, maybe the more critical, is speculation. Keep in the mind, for instance, that rice price was multiplied by 20% within two weeks in 2007. When rice is the main food for many poor people, we can imagine the consequences of this. But the problem with that is the price is decreasing, the risk is the same. That's to say, in this case, small producers are ruined. Which is another factor of aggravation of, and worsening, of this situation. Solutions are very difficult to find. But however, however, some countries could do the job. China is now almost no more suffering from starvation, and the same for Brazil after the famous Fome Zero policy, which was defined by the president Lula Da Silva. Who gave, his government gave vouchers 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. From 99 to 2009, that's why. This issue is not a desperate one, but this issue will be really challenged if there is a possible willingness to do that. [MUSIC]
