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Vasta, from Malawi, pouring drying rice from a basket. PHOTO: SVEN TORFINN/PANOS/ACTIONAID

Food Rights Teacher’s notes

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Slide 1/ Title page

Food Rights, June 2012 Aims • To investigate some of the factors which cause hunger • To explore the individual stories of people living in LEDCs who are affected by hunger • To find out some of the ways in which people in LEDCs are tackling hunger Curriculum links Geography KS3 1.6b Exploring sustainable development and its impact on environmental interaction and climate change 1.7a Appreciating the differences and similarities between people, places, environments and cultures to inform their understanding of societies and economies. 2.1g Solve problems and make decisions to develop analytical skills and creative thinking about geographical issues. Science KS3 3.3 Organisms, behaviour and health c. conception, growth, development, behaviour and health can all be affected by diet, drugs and disease 3.4 The environment, Earth and universe c. human activity and natural processes can lead to changes in the environment 4. Curriculum opportunity c. Use real-life examples as a basis for finding out about science d. study science in local, national and global contexts, and appreciate the connections between these g. recognise the importance of sustainability in scientific and technological developments k. make links between science and other subjects and areas of the curriculum PHOTO: SVEN TORFINN/PANOS/ACTIONAID

Slide 2/ Why do we need food?

Activity: 1. Ask learners what we need food for. 2. Compare their answers to the answers that appear on the slide. - Food provides us with the energy we need for growth, physical activity and the basic body functions. - Food also supplies us with the materials to build and maintain the body and to promote resistance to disease. - To be healthy and well nourished, we must have adequate amounts of a variety of good-quality, safe foods. - Too much food or an improper balance of food can contribute to poor health and the risk of chronic diseases, like heart disease. PHOTO: TOM PIETRASIK/ACTIONAID

Slide 3/ Who should have access to food?

Access to food is a basic human right. The right to food is recognised in international law, enabling people to live in dignity, free from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The human right to food originates within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (U.N. 1948), Article 25, which states “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food.” Source: World Hunger Education Service (http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/global/foodashumrgt/special.htm) PHOTO: LIZ NEWBON/ACTIONAID

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Slide 4/ Think Pair Share: Why do so many people globally go hungry?

Activity: What do you think causes hunger? You could refer to the statistics on the next slide (Extra information) to give learners an idea of how many people go hungry. 1. Think: ask learners to think about the question individually for a minute. 2. Pair: give learners two minutes to discuss the question with a partner and write a list of all their

answers. 3. Share: spend a few minutes sharing some of the learners’ answers.

Slide 5/ How many people are hungry?

A total of 925 million people are facing hunger in the world. That’s 1 in 7 people in the world. Developing countries account for 98% of the world’s undernourished* people. Two-thirds live in just seven countries (Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan) and over 40% live in China and India alone. The FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf says, “With a child dying every six seconds because of undernourishment related problems, hunger remains the world's largest tragedy and scandal. This is absolutely unacceptable." *Undernourished refers to people whose food intake regularly provides less than their minimum energy requirements. The average minimum energy requirement per person is about 1800 kcal per day. SOURCE: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), http://www.fao.org/ IMAGE: The State of Food Insecurity in the World report (SOFI), http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/al390e/al390e00.pdf

Slide 6/ How has drought affected Ebrima’s family?

Case study: Ebrima Mbye from The Gambia.

Ebrima is physically challenged and uses a wheelchair to move around. Although Ebrima cannot farm, he knows a lot about farming. His family is part of a community of small-scale farmers in Macca Niamina in The Gambia. He is completely reliant on his mother and brother to provide him with food, clothes and education from the money they earn from farming but this year, their crops have been damaged by drought and they face a food crisis in their region. Ebrima’s family are having to reduce the number of meals they eat each day. They eat their groundnut crop by boiling them and mixing with rice when they can afford it. Most of the food goes to the children in the family. The amount of water available from the village well is less than last year, so the villagers are unable to grow vegetables. Some of the villagers are travelling to nearby towns for work as they have not been able to grow the same amount of crops for selling as last year, but it is difficult to find jobs. Ebrima is not hopeful for the future. “Three months ago, we had heard that there’s going to be a food crisis but we were not expecting this. We do not know how we will survive until the next harvest and we are very afraid that something bad will happen... That we will start to die.” Small-scale farmers like Ebrima’s family make up half of the world’s hungry. They are more vulnerable to changes in the climate and to government and international policies aimed at reducing hunger. PHOTO: ACTIONAID

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Slide 7/ Why can’t Anastasia grow enough food to live on?

Case study: Anastasia Bavuga from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Anastasia tries to support her family through farming, particularly by growing cabbages. Recently, heavy rainfall destroyed Anastasia’s cabbage crop. Since then she has tried to find land on local farms to grow her crops to sell at the market. But no land was available so she offered to farm other people’s land but has not been successful. Although farm work is back-breaking work, Anastasia says she will continue to work wherever she can in order to try to pay her son’s school fees. Unfortunately, without her cabbage harvest it will be impossible for Anastasia to save enough. Anastasia and farmers like her who don’t own land are known as the rural landless. They make up 20% of the world’s hungry and are dependent on being able to farm on the land of others. Although women produce 80% of food in Africa, they only own 1% of land. PHOTO: ACTIONAID

Slide 8/ How has natural disaster affected the Vilme family?

Case study: The Vilme family from Haiti On January 12th, 2010, an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale rocked Haiti. It was the most powerful earthquake to have struck the country for 200 years. The epicentre of the earthquake was near the town of Leogane, approximately 17 km southwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. [Click to see the Vilme family, clockwise from bottom right: Marie Walkine, 7, her brother Walker, 9, father Sonnel and mother Marie-Rose] Marie and Walker Vilme survived the earthquake. All five of the Vilme children were at home when the roof collapsed. They managed to scramble free and now all the family are living on the street in Mariana, one of the poorest areas of Port-au-Prince. “I had rice, oil and flour, sugar and beans inside my house but it’s been crushed by a ton of concrete – so I’ve lost all my stock.” But I’m just so happy no-one was killed,” said Sonnel Vilme, who was selling food in the street when the earthquake struck. He rushed home to find his home in rubble and feared the worst. He quickly searched the area and found his wife and children further up the hill near the church. One of his cousins died in the quake and some of his family are still missing but his immediate family escaped with a few scratches. The earthquake came when Haiti was barely recovering from the storms of 2008, which left 800 people dead and caused over $1 billion in damage. The effects of the earthquake were felt in the Departments of the West, Southeast and Nippes. The metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince (including the municipalities of Port-au-Prince, Carrefour, Petionville, Delmas, Tabarre, Cite Soleil and Kenscoff) was damaged extensively. 80% of the city of Leogane was destroyed. PHOTO: MOISES SAMAN/PANOS/ACTIONAID PHOTO: MOISES SAMAN/PANOS/ACTIONAID

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Slide 9/ Why has Akeema’s family had to give up fishing?

Case study: Hakeema, married to a fisherman from Pakistan As a fisherman, Hakeema’s husband was previously able to provide food and money for his family of six children. Until a few years ago, fishing was able to put food on the table as well as provide cash from sales at the local market, but now there are foreign trawlers in the ocean and the local fishermen are forced to find other sources of income. [Click to show trawler] The trawlers (similar to the one pictured here) are large fishing boats that drag nets below the surface of the ocean and often catch more than just fish. Hakeema says, “Ten years ago, we could catch fish from the coast but the water has become so dirty that fish cannot survive here anymore. People who previously worked on the agricultural fields have also entered the fishing profession. It is hard to compete with so many people for the same resources.” Hakeema used to help her husband by making fishing nets as well as cleaning and gutting his catch, but the lack of money and food means she now works as a domestic cleaner. Hakeema’s wage is very low and even when combined with that from her husband and son, the family struggle to afford dry bread. But Hakeema says, “I thank God for what we have. Some people in my village can’t afford even that.” 3 billion people around the world live on the coast and rely on the sea to make a living. More and more people are having to find other ways to make a living, as 40% of the world oceans become affected by pollution, overfishing, and loss of coastal habitats. PHOTO: ACTIONAID PHOTO: WARRICK PAGE/PANOS PICTURES/ACTIONAID

Slide 10/ How is climate change affecting our food supply?

What is climate change? Life on Earth exists partly due to a layer of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that trap some of the heat from the Sun. Unfortunately, the layer is getting thicker because of an increase in the levels of greenhouse gases being emitted. For example, when we burn fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) to produce electricity, the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the atmosphere. The greater the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more heat is trapped resulting in a long-term increase in global temperatures. What impact does climate change have on the weather? As our planet gets warmer, the weather we experience will become more unpredictable and unusual. The weather is also likely to be more extreme, leading to droughts, floods or heat waves. (Continued)

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Slide 10/ How is climate change affecting our food supply?

What impact does climate change have on our food supply? • As floods and droughts worsen with climate change, it will be more challenging to grow food in many areas. Some farmers will have to move away from the land they farm and/or leave farming all together. • Livestock may become ill due to extremes of weather and farmers may not be able to afford to look after them. • The water cycle is affected by climate change, which results in less water available for farming and drinking. • The cutting down of trees (deforestation) on a large scale contributes to excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because trees absorb carbon dioxide as part of photosynthesis, the process that produces food for green plants. The loss of trees also leads to soil erosion which can result in land degradation and desertification, making it harder to grow certain crops. PHOTO: NILAYAN/ACTIONAID PHOTO: SIEGFRIED NODOLA/SHOOT THE EARTH/ACTIONAID PHOTO: JEHAD NGA/CORBIS/ACTIONAID PHOTO: DES WILLIE/ACTIONAID PHOTO: FIROZ AHMAD FIROZ/ACTIONAID PHOTO: GRAEME WILLIAMS/PANOS PICTURES/ACTIONAID

Slide 11/ What are some of the causes of hunger?

Activity: 1. Learners should refer back to their earlier list and add anything they missed first time round. Hunger can be caused by: • Poverty and unequal distribution of resources, including food. • A lack of access to and control over resources such as land and technology. This particularly affects women. • Climate change and resulting extreme weather conditions, from drought to floods. • National and international food, fishing and agricultural policies that ignore the needs of small-scale farmers and fishers. Other factors (not covered in this PowerPoint but which pupils could research further): • Soaring food prices. The world’s poor who spend the majority of their income on food are particularly vulnerable to high food prices. • Growing demand for biofuels.* In just five African countries, 1.1 million hectares have been given over to industrial biofuels – an area the size of Belgium. An extra 30 million people have been pushed into hunger as a result of the demand for biofuels. (SOURCE: ActionAid) • Land grabs by foreign governments or companies who are buying increasing amounts of land in Africa and Asia. Around 200 million hectares, an area 8 times the size of Britain, has been bought or leased over the last 10 years. *Biofuels are fuel made from agricultural crops like wheat, maize, palm oil, sugar cane or wastes such as cooking oil. Whilst they are sometimes burnt in power plants to produce heat and electricity, in the UK they are usually mixed with petrol and diesel to fuel our cars. Case study (right photo): Simon Lokidongoi and Rose Ittoa (carrying their young child) on the land they used to farm, Kenya. Simon holds the head of a dead cow. Farmers have lost their livelihoods due to drought which has led to fighting between communities in the area. PHOTO: FREDERIC COURBET/PANOS PICTURES/ACTIONAID

Case study (left photo): Yama Toure, 55, lives in Senegal. When her husband died 18 years ago, local villagers tried to take away the land but Yama’s brother advised her to register the land in her name. Other women are not so lucky as “they do not know that they have the right to own lands”. Even Yama has been refused access to her land and is unable to use it to grow food for her six children. PHOTO: CANDACE FEIT/ACTIONAID

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Slide 12/ How can we create a world without hunger?

Activity:

Everyone has the right to be free from hunger. Governments are responsible for ensuring that no one goes hungry, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, and almost all have signed up to UN agreements protecting this right.

1. In small groups of 2-3, ask learners to think of some creative ‘big solutions’ to world hunger. They can either think about all of the causes of hunger listed on the slide or just focus on one, depending on time, ability etc. They could write their ideas on Post-It notes and stick onto the slide under the appropriate heading. 2. If time permits, discuss the different ‘big solutions’ and ask the groups to select which ones they think would work with reasons why.

Slide 13/ How is ActionAid fighting hunger?

Activity: Working in groups of 3-4, learners should read through the handout (available as a separate download) of five case studies which illustrate the different ways that ActionAid is working with people to tackle the causes of hunger. This activity will also work if the teacher gives each group only one or two case studies to focus on. Then leaners can either: 1. Compare ActionAid’s approaches to their own ‘big solutions’. What are the similarities and what are the differences? or 2. Select the case study that they think shows the most effective way to fight hunger. They should summarise briefly what is being done to tackle hunger, why they think it works so well and how it could be used internationally. As an extension, pupils could make suggestions on ways to improve the work being done by ActionAid. PHOTO: SULAH NUWAMANYA/ACTIONAID PHOTO: ACTIONAID PHOTO: ACTIONAID PHOTO: ACTIONAID PHOTO: ACTIONAID PHOTO: ACTIONAID

Slide 14/ Final slide

For further information, visit: www.actionaid.org.uk/schools PHOTO: SVEN TORFINN/PANOS PICTURES/ACTIONAID