South African Farm (Photo: Siphiwe Sibeko)

As Americans set off for the Thanksgiving holidays, few will likely pause to reflect on the global inequality surrounding access to food. A estimated one billion people worldwide are obese; an estimated 870 million are hungry. The geography of the maldistribution of food largely reflects the traditional north-south patterns of inequality more generally.

Like this broader pattern of inequality, the unequal distribution of food resources has both natural (geographic) and anthropocentric origins. While progress has been made in reducing the total proportion of the global population that suffers from hunger, progress in Africa has been slower than the global average. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2012 State of Food Insecurity in the World report noted that the number of hungry people declined from 18.6 percent of the global population in 1990-92 to 12.5 percent of the global population in 2010-12. But as the press…