All Media

This chilling 1968 CBS-TV documentary shows the shocking depth of poverty and hunger among Black Americans. One of the underlying causes of that hunger is the unemployment resulting from the mechanization of cotton harvesting, which increased from two percent to eighty percent in recent years (coupled, of course, with racism). Along with distressing interviews with utterly impoverished (and hungry) people, especially in Alabama, narrator Charles Kuralt decries the fact that U.S. Department of Agriculture failed to expend hundreds of millions of dollars that were earmarked for relieving hunger. And it emphasizes that in 1968 people with little money had to pay for food stamps (now called SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). (CBS-TV; 1968; 14’1”)

This documentary demonstrates effectively that all too many Americans go to bed hungry, and it highlights the efforts of heroic people who are trying to alleviate hunger at the local level. Volunteerism helps fill food pantries, fund food banks, and provides free hot meals to the needy. All those approaches help, but the film does not suggest the more important policy approaches to ending hunger, including strengthening such federal programs as SNAP, WIC, and school meals. (Skydive Films; 2014; 51’51”)

Improving agricultural productivity and reducing hunger in Africa, Bill Gates argues, will require a system-wide approach. Better seeds (from conventional breeding and genetic engineering), more fertilizer, reducing food waste, and other strategies should help many African nations. But will the global community and the nations themselves commit to implementing such an approach? Gates’ goal, says this 2015 video, is to abolish hunger by 2030, but that clearly is not going to happen. (The Verge; 2015; 2’50”)

This hopeful video produced by the World Bank explains in broad outline the extent of hunger around the globe, the costs in terms of less productive workers and more sickness, and the solutions. Unfortunately, this film from 2011 has not aged well: hunger is still widely prevalent, both in impoverished African nations and even in the wealthiest countries including the United States. (World Bank; 2011; 2’49”)

In this brief video, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, explains that even with 800 million people going to bed hungry, countries can end hunger by 2030. But they need to create systems that raise agricultural productivity in rural areas, improve nutritional outcomes, and invest in more climate-smart agriculture that can withstand a warmer planet. Unfortunately, the covid epidemic, the demise of USAID, and other factors ensure that hunger will not be ended by 2030. (World Bank Group, Future of Food; 2015; 1’22”)

Hunger and malnutrition cost the global economy over three trillion dollars every year. This United Nations video estimates that eliminating hunger would cost only one-tenth that amount. One way to reduce hunger would be to use much of the one-third of all food that is currently wasted. (United Nations’ World Food Program; 2017; 1’52”)