An African saying cautions that when you have eaten your fill, you should cover your stomach. Economists who study behaviour say rich nations have for years been doing the opposite. The richer they get, the more wastefully the people eat.

Generally the poor eat vegetables, while the rich eat food that eats vegetables. While Americans consume 120kg of meat each per year; in the developing world they eat only 28kg.
Mainly because of trends such as this, the economists and other professionals who project how people will live in the future say that in only 40 years, we will need the equivalent of two earths to feed mankind.

According to experts, this is going to be the hungriest century in history, with the global population estimated to increase three-fold. To feed all these people, the Food and Agriculture Organization says man will need to produce twice as much food.

She is no economist, and 65-year old Nduku Katunge’s rapport with hunger is anything but a projection. As she plants maize at a research site in Kiboko near Makindu, Katunge, a widowed mother of seven, is wondering whether she will eat tonight, and whether she will be able to pay this month’s rent of Sh 300.

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