Food production and hunger combat in the world. An approach from the capabilities perspective

Abstract

This essay pursues two purposes. First, to present the categorical repertoire proposed by the perspective of capabilities, pointing out their contribution within the plurality of conceptions of justice prevailing in contemporary discussion. Second, to analyze the problems of malnutrition and hunger in the world by applying Sen’s approach. We will conclude that these evils are linked to authoritarian administrative structures, where the lack of democratic freedoms and rights are correlative to an exercise of public powers self-deluded by the systematic censorship of information and propaganda. Therefore, we will see that attention to the problems of hunger and malnutrition transcends the economic context of food production, demanding a democratic political-institutional horizon that guarantees the plural exercise of the different freedoms of the people: functionings, capabilities and agency freedoms. Particularly important are freedom of the press and opposition parties, since they constitute an efficient system of early prevention of economic and natural disasters, given that they provide timely information on the first signs of such disasters, while they are mechanisms of pressure to induce public policies that respond to the needs and sufferings of the people.