U.S., European trade policies contribute to African hunger, authors say

— -- More food-growing capacity has failed to reduce hunger in the world. In fact, every 5 seconds, starvation takes another life, many of them in Africa.

This is the disheartening message of Enough: Why the Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty (PublicAffairs, $27.95, 416 pages) by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman, veteran Wall Street Journal reporters.

Thurow, a well-traveled foreign correspondent, and Kilman, who covers agriculture, teamed to tell a tale of African futility, a story of tragic contrast to progress being made in other struggling developing countries.

To the authors, what helped give low-income regions in Latin America and Asia a chance to expand production was the embrace of the green revolution, which was championed by the late Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning agronomist.

The authors single out Borlaug, who died Sept. 12 at 95, for his tireless efforts to bring new techniques to poor regions and win the acceptance of locals.

It was Borlaug who urged the use of fertilizer, high-yield seeds and small-scale irrigation projects that help poor countries increase food productivity, which allows governments to shift resources to other pressing needs.

But the green revolution never reached Africa, the authors say, a continent cursed by famine, war and disease. Enough explains how Africa, "the womb of our species," slipped so far behind.

The authors place a share of the blame on the farm and trade policies of the United States and European countries. In both regions, legislators often grapple with powerful farm lobbies, which push hard for price supports and tariff barriers.

Price supports have the effect of expanding the supply of a commodity beyond the demand of domestic consumers. The resulting surplus ends up in other nations, often in Africa, as food aid. In some cases, the foreign-grown food is cheaper than the local variety, putting African farmers at a competitive disadvantage.

Enough reveals that the 30 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development gave $52 billion in development aid to Africa in 2007, a sizable portion in food aid. At the same time, they subsidized their own farmers with price supports worth $311 billion.