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How the World Hunger Problem Was not Solved

Christian Gerlach (University of Bern, Switzerland)

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Hardback

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English
Routledge
14 February 2024
The world food crisis (1972–1975) gave rise to new development concepts. To eradicate world hunger, small peasants were supposed to use ‘modern’ inputs like high-yielding seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation. This would turn subsistence producers into business owners, transform rural areas, invigorate national economies and the crisis-stricken world economy and thus stabilize capitalism.

Together with an in-depth account of the world food crisis, this book analyses how this global scheme largely failed. It shows its diverse initiators, their reasoning and motives, its political breakthrough, the degrees to which it was implemented globally and nationally in the following decades and its socioeconomic effects in rural areas. Despite internationally coordinated policies and coercive means, the scheme failed on all levels: situation analysis, design, policies, incapable institutions (including big business), implementation and peasants’ responses. Selective realization in certain regions and for certain crops and the appropriation of funds by local elites often aggravated inequality and hunger. Case studies are about Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tanzania and Mali. The book shows limits to global social engineering, imperialism and state control.

It is aimed at students, scholars, activists and non-specialists interested in development and the world food problem.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

By:  
Imprint:   Routledge
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 156mm, 
Weight:   1.320kg
ISBN:   9781032584928
ISBN 10:   1032584920
Series:   Routledge Studies in Modern History
Pages:   614
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Christian Gerlach is Professor of History at the University of Bern. His fields of research are mass violence, war and the history of agriculture, food, hunger and development. Among his earlier books is Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century World (2010).

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