How Can Tourism Help the Sustainable Development Goals? #2 Zero Hunger

Earth-Changers.com
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

1 in 9 people are undernourished: 793 million worldwide today.

Thus 'Zero Hunger' is Sustainable Development Goal #2 of the 17 Global Goals:

SDG #2 "End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture"

Hunger is not having enough to eat to meet energy requirements. Hunger can lead to malnutrition, but absence of hunger does not imply absence of malnutrition.

So many of the countries we visit on our travels are ravaged by food scarcity. Yet, for many of us, food is an integral part of travel. Where we enjoy the sensory pleasures of gastronomic delights, at the local market or restaurant, many local people are under-nourished with inequality.

It’s a geographic lottery: There are 11 million people undernourished in developed countries, but almost all the hungry people, 780 million, live in developing countries, 2 out of 3 of them in Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 4 is under-nourished — and that’s increasing.

It’s not food availability that is the issue — the world produces enough food to feed everyone and there is growth in food availability.

But it is food availability access that is an issue, largely because many still do not have sufficient income to purchase (or land to grow) enough food. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger — with climate change (from man-made global warming inclusive of food production) increasingly viewed as a current and future cause of both hunger and poverty.

Tourism can help.

Of course it cannot cannot solve all hunger problems alone. But it is well positioned to foster sustainable development in areas of under- and mal- nutrition:

There are around 25% less people under-nourished in the world (795 million) than there are international tourist trips (1. 2 billion, UNWTO, 2017).

Tourism can provide the demand and support required for food production, energy costs, jobs, livelihoods and inter-sector local economic growth.

This may help destinations’ development, and also drive tourism resorts to become more sustainable: Producing some of their own food and making more sustainable choices (eg. seafood, organic, hydroponic) for the longer term is more attractive.

And as people become more interested in how their food is produced, so culinary tourism and agritourism or agrotourism is rising; that is, travel for the purpose of food experiences and experiencing agricultural life.

In tourism, if it’s better for hosts, it’s better for visitors.

Earth Changers research & showcase the best positive impact, transformative tourism, going into greater detail and examples here on how tourism can help the SDGs, and ending hunger.

What are the (other) Sustainable Development Goals and what have they got to do with Tourism?

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