Anthropology

One of the biggest problems of todays society is the shortage of food supply and the continuous increase in the number of people who suffer starvation. Robert Dirks article entitled Hunger and Famine critically discussed the causes of hunger and  how the world reached this tragic state.  People go hungry when there is no supply of food available for them. As mentioned in the article, famine cannot be attributed to a single cause only. Dirks explored some historical cases of famine around the world. The author focused on discussing the roles of humans, Mother Nature, technology, economy, and politics to the food supply of the world and what catalyzed the food shortages for the people. Dirks also discussed extensively in his article the biological, social, and cultural effects of famine. The article presented clearly the different reasons that could have contributed to the food problems of the world and what are the effects of hunger to the world.
   
To provide critical evidence for the claims of the article, the author provided related stories on what caused the different cases of famine in different places. According to some evidences that are mentioned in the article,  agriculture was not the great blessing once imagined. The author included famine records of the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) as support for the claim that agriculture was actually not the solution to hunger, rather it have even become the cause of famine. Also, with the commercialization that transformed agriculture to agribusiness, caused more famine problems to the world because people became more focused in profits instead of increasing the food supply to feed the world.
   
Dirks highlighted in the article the belief that the underlying cause of hunger and famine could be attributed to the uncontrollable population growth of the world. The evidences and discussion that the author presented in this article proved that the reality of increasing population and decreasing means of food production are credible reasons why hunger is a big problem now.
   
The article was really informative and interesting because the author also explored the relationship of the class inequality in the society to the realities of starvation. Dirks highlighted how the cases of famine and starvation are very high with the people in the poorer classes. I also learned from Hunger and Famine how the world is governed by rules of food entitlements and this explains why some regions go hungry even if there is still food supply available somewhere else. The discussion on class inequality and food entitlements further enhanced my understanding of human diversity and the famine situation of the world.
   
Hunger and Famine is a very instructive article that offers significant and insightful information about the reality of famine in the world. It covered all the essential causes and effects of starvation to the world and why it needs to be solved at once. Although Dirks was not able to offer concrete solutions for the problem, he also added a very important insight on what are the roles of media and governments to help address the hunger and famine problems of our society.