Several things need to happen:
1. We need to encourage population growth below replacement rate.
2. We need to cease over-farming arrable land.
3. We need to improve distribution systems.
4. We need to encourage crop improvement, genetic and otherwise.
5. We need to develop additional sources of fertilizer.
6. We need to insure that all agricultural additives are safe.

Contrary to @CaptainHarley‘s opinion, I feel that genetic modification of crops should cease. We already over-produce, but I believe a monopoly on food production is detrimental to fighting world hunger. Patents on living organisms should be banned. I feel that it is dangerous to allow a monopoly over something as vital to life as food.

First the problem is not as big some would want you to believe neither the solution as technical as some would like it to appear.

When one takes the resposibility to be his brother’s keeper, then hunger would not even be on our thoughts.
Plus you would also find that we actually need far less food than we eat.

I saw this interview of a Frenchman who developed a product called PlumpyNut which is formulated to be a cheap “perfect” foodstuff that has been saving malnourished babies in impoverished countries that would otherwise die.

The only frustrating part here is the company is French and apparently they only want French people to know about is as all their information in French with no translations so I had to provide a wiki link grrrrrrr!!

IMO fresh clean drinking water is really one of the biggest issue facing the worlds hungry people. So many get sick and die from water born diseases still and something as simple as clean drinking water is something many of us take for granted.

We need to start eating bugs. I know that sounds completely absurd but there is much more protein per mass there than in meat. Meat is such a gross waste of resources.

1) Access to knowledge in developing countries
2) Stop of biofuel production in developing countries competing with food production (doesn’t apply to micro algae for example)
3) Stop of food exports from developed countries to developing countries except as a humanitarian act in the case of disasters

There is no shortage of food on earth.
In some places, however, there is a shortage of money to buy the food.
The real answer to the problem is elimination of political systems that interfere with education of population and that control market activety.

I agree that there is no shortage. But I think it’s a distribution problem in addition to being a money problem. We need to get food to the right places, preferably by growing it there. But there are surpluses and wasted food all over the world, and if people could glean that, it would help.

There are three solutions to this pressing problem….
Population control
Population control
Population control

Most of the worlds hungry live under highly unstable or corrupt governments, or totalitarian regimes where the citizens come in second to power. India is an exception, but its caste system more than overrides the government. Hunger will continue as long as these systems exist.

Food production needs to be taken out of the hands of corporations and put back into the hands of the people.

Commence throwing your shoes and calling me a Marxist.

@incendiary_dan

I agree, unless by “the people” you mean the frakkin’ government! Then we seriously disagee!

@CaptainHarley Is there really a difference? ;)

Most assuredly, most of the time. I consider myself to be one of “the people” but most of those in this current government couldn’t give a rat’s ass about me or my family or our future.

I should have been clearer. Is there a difference between governments and corporations? Ultimately, they both want your money and for you to behave. Governments largely work as a legitimizing force for corporations.

Yes there is. At least you have the chance to elect someone who favors the same sort of government you do. With corporations you have to be either a stockholder ( usually a MAJOR stockholder ), the head of a labor union which represents a significant percentage of the corporation’s personnel, or have some way of influencing the buying practices of a significant number of consumers.

End Nationalism and corruption.

I think that it is actually a problem that results from a combination of reasons. First, we do need to take control of food production from the hands of the corporations that now hold it. I agree that patenting types of seeds and the resulting plants is absolutely ridiculous. But I also think that in some areas the distribution of food is in the hands of corrupt governments who keep food from the citizens whom need it. Finally I think that both the issues of environmental degradation and overpopulation are part of the problem. The culture of the first world is attractive to the people in the third world, and they do not call it fair to be denied the culture. The people in the third world look at efforts of the first world to keep them from obtaining the culture as paternalistic and as they become better equipped they wish to be free to make the same mistakes as the first world and have what we in the west have.

Also, the lack of clean water is in many ways becoming one of the biggest environmental problems that we face. In many parts of the world access to clean waters not assured, and people must travel long distances to obtain any.

@GracieT Are you familiar with permaculture?