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Can we end poverty for $US175 billion per year?

I have come across this claim several times.

The Money required to eradicate hunger for everyone in the world has been estimated at 30 billion per year...about as much as the world spends on the military every eight days

Does it indeed take as little as thirty billion dollars a year to eradicate hunger in the world? Any studies to back up this claim?

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Armen Tsirunyan
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    This assumes that money is the solution to world hunger. I think the larger obstacle is usually political. But I have no sources for this... – Flimzy May 13 '12 at 18:22
  • Back of the envelope: In the United States, it's easy to cook a meal for 30 cents. In many countries, people live on more like 10 cents a meal. If we assume that 1 billion people cannot afford food, then .10 $/meal * 3 meals/day * 1 billion people * 365 days/year = 109.5 billion dollars/year. So $30 billion probably almost the right order of magnitude. Of course, additional infrastructure may be required, so costs could be higher. And a suitably nutritious diet may cost more like .20-.30 cents per meal, I'm not sure. – SigmaX May 14 '12 at 03:52
  • There is **no** World hunger. There is a pandemic of obesity. – vartec May 14 '12 at 12:42
  • @vartec: That seems a very First World view of the globe. I wonder if I have misunderstood your point. For example, the UN only declared the most recent Somalia famine to be over [3 months ago](http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/interactive/2012/feb/22/somalia-famine-aid-media-interactive). – Oddthinking May 14 '12 at 14:41
  • @Oddthinking: problem of Somalia wasn't lack of food, but civil war and total anarchy. And providing them with free food does not help. Two most important things you need to form an army: weapons and food which is easy to store and transport. If they would have to actually grow their crops, the wouldn't have time nor energy to fight. – vartec May 14 '12 at 15:00
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    @Oddthinking: and my point is, as I've stated in http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/7596/3790, that there isn't a place in the world where average calorie intake would be below WHO recommendation. So it's not like there is not enough food there. There are people in Africa who suffer malnutrition, but it's all about wars, not lack of food. – vartec May 14 '12 at 15:05
  • @vartec: Ah, your point is we produce enough food globally (even, perhaps, nationally), but don't have the nous to share it without fighting? Understood. Thank you. – Oddthinking May 14 '12 at 15:09
  • Which brings me back to the claim: if it is "this is how much it would take to grow the food" it is silly. If it is "this is how much it would take the bribe the warlords and presidents, build the bridges and roads, establish the schools..." – Oddthinking May 14 '12 at 15:12
  • @Oddthinking: my point is even in countries like Somalia there is more than enough food for everyone. Not everyone gets it, because of fighting, not because of shortage. As for global food production we're producing way more than enough for few decades already. Hence various quota systems, production caps etc. – vartec May 14 '12 at 15:22
  • **No**, because a war with North Korea would cost more than 30 billion dollars. – Mechanical snail Dec 15 '12 at 14:22

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