My daughter Jemima asked me earlier in the year, "Dad, what's the longest you've gone without food?" I wracked my brain to remember. Apart from an overnight fast for a cholesterol test, and perhaps missing the odd meal over the years, I had to admit that probably the longest I had gone without food was a paltry 14 hours.
To friends and colleagues, I'm well-known for becoming rather tetchy when I haven't had anything to eat (it's not just me, the rest of my family is the same and there will be plenty of people reading this who recognise the symptoms too). It's best to ask me important questions just after lunch, rather than just before. I'm familiar with some mild symptoms of hunger.
However, I decided that 14 hours was really not sufficient, so I decided to have a proper fast just a couple of weeks ago. Having eaten an enormous Sunday lunch with my family, I took on no solid food for the next 24 hours (although I did sneak a cup of tea). By the 23rd hour, at lunch time on the following day, I was watching the clock crawl round, closer and closer to the time when I could break my fast. My head felt light and I was dizzy. I didn't want to speak, I was so hungry. I know, it's pathetic: 24 hours without food and I'm practically melting. On the dot of 24 hours, the first bite of my sandwich was bliss.
Anyway, it got me thinking about hunger and the fear of hunger. I have lost a little bit of fear at the concept of hunger: which I think is one of the reasons why so many of us in the developed world eat so much. It's not just because we can eat so much (calories are everywhere, often proffered to us free), it's perhaps as much to do with our fear of going hungry. Once you've experienced a bit of hunger (yes it's uncomfortable, but I didn't die), then you will lose some fear of it and perhaps forego a second helping or the next snack offered to you. (It helps me to think that every biscuit contains enough calories to power you for one mile (1.6km) of running or walking - meaning to get rid of those calories, you have to run a mile - and I know how hard that is!).
Perhaps we should be more familiar with hunger, although I'm preaching to the converted here for our Muslim readers - the yearly month-long daylight fasts of Ramadan are already familiar to them. I'd be interested to find out if they feel that the process of Ramadan fasting is of overall benefit to them - either physically or mentally.
Hunger, rather than the fear of hunger, is a bigger problem. Not my paltry 24 hours of hunger, but real hunger. Do you know how many people in the world are hungry? Perhaps around one billion people in the world are hungry, mostly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.1 According to the United Nation's World Food Programme, a child dies from hunger every six seconds.2 That's six million children in a year. Despite the reduction of world hunger being one of the Millennium Development Goals, the total number of hungry people in the world has actually increased sharply - by over 100 million people - in the past five years due to the global economic crisis and also due to sharply increased food prices (with multiple causes) from 2006 onwards. This is odd, since the world produces more than enough calories to feed everyone. Unfortunately, inequality in terms of economic and political power means that the wealth and the calories are not shared equally. Also, according to World Hunger, "By causing poor health, low levels of energy, and even mental impairment, hunger can lead to even greater poverty by reducing people's ability to work and learn, thus leading to even greater hunger."
Some people might suggest that the places where people are hungry are not fit for human habitation (such as arid areas and marginally-productive land). This is true - and population densities will inevitably change in the long term to reflect this fact. Families may well wish to move to urban areas - the cities - where calories are seemingly easier to come by, and who can deny them this option? The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations suggests that our planet could feed 12 billion people (global population is suggested to 'top out' at around 9 billion in around 2050). So it's not as if the planet can't cope with the extra mouths to feed. It can.
All in all, I'd like to say that there are a lot of people who are hungry, that they don't wish it upon themselves, that it is possibly not their fault (and that it may be a self-perpetuating trap) and that they could probably do with some help. The death of six million children in a year is a big news story, but I haven't seen it mentioned on CNN or the BBC recently.
As for what action we in the wider global cement industry can take to help, I leave that up to you.