There are fundamental things that each human being must have in order for their physical body to live, such as food, shelter, water, and health. While more than this that is required to complete a man, such as a sound mind, religious spirit, purpose, love, and wisdom, our most basic need begins with the physical requirement for nourishment or else our body will wither and die.
Civilizations, governments, and countries are well aware of our fundamental need that we must be fed and have some sort of shelter from the elements and those that have the power or the influence to control the distribution of food and/or shelter have a tremendous hold on the population. When that power and influence for food and shelter is held in the hands of the people commensurate with their efforts and labor, a given people will then be free from the vagaries of incompetent and corrupt governments. However, there are a multitude of governments that control the distribution of food, of employment, of shelter, and this easily creates an environment that is unhealthy and untenable for the general population.
Never in the history of the world has the production of food been able to have been achieved with the efficiency and economies of scale that we have acted upon today. Not only is it commonplace for food to be grown or developed or herded in one area of the world and then be distributed virtually all over the world, but this logistical brilliance and output shows no signs of having maximized itself in its effect or in its usefulness.
Yet despite the fact that it has never been easier or more accessible to feed our worldwide population, there are literally millions of people starving to death or suffering from malnutrition each year, in which somewhere around 13-18 million people die from starvation or starvation related diseases each and every year. One of the most disappointing things about food and its abundance, but also its uneven distribution, is never have we had so many people that are clearly obese or significantly overweight as we do today, such as in the United States in which it is estimated as reported by policymic.com that over 160 million Americans are overweight.
While great strides have been made to distribute food to the needy around the world, there is much more work to be done. Unfortunately, there are also roadblocks in the way for the distribution of foodstuffs to those that are most lacking, and tragically the main blockage comes from within the corrupt government structures and the civil wars and strife within these impoverished lands. The food, water, and sanitation often do arrive to these countries port-of-call, but instead of being provided to those that are most deserving of this aid, it is instead taken by the government or its cronies for their use, bartering, or distribution.
Humanitarian aid must take into account the corruptness of certain regimes and rather than continuing business as usual, begin to implement sophisticated airlifts to population centers that are clearly being underserved. One such idea is to take drones and adapt them in such a way as to provide emergency food items to areas that are inaccessible to conventional means of transportation.
The hunger is real; it is for us, the living, to find that way to feed those that hunger.