The Hunger Crisis: Take Action
April 16th, 2008 at 3:17 pm | posted by Virginia Simmons
The shocking headlines have had our attention all week. The price of basic food staples have increased 45% in just the last nine months - and they’ve doubled in the last three years.
As we all must know - these rising prices deal a crushing blow to the world’s poorest people - people who already spend more than half of their income on food.
This weekend, World Bank President Zoellick said that this hunger crisis could “push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty” and that the effects would be equivalent of “seven lost years in the fight against worldwide poverty.”
The shortage is fueling social unrest in some of the most fragile nations around the globe. Haiti, Egypt, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mozambique, Bolivia and Uzbekistan discontent has already erupted. “For countries where food comprises from half to three-quarters of consumption, there is no margin for survival.”(Zoellick)
We have to do something. Please sign our petition to President Bush urging world leaders to take action.
-Virginia Simmons
April 16th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
the G8 countries should take action against poverty.they should NOTt be that careless and NOT expand their imperial dominance over the world
April 16th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
wall street profits hiring desperate people for pennies an hour.
we eat food and drink tea grown in nations with starvation.
the USA sells weapons to the leaders of nations with starvation.
ONE is not pointing out the whys of hunger. why not?
April 16th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
David Lane,
I hope you read these comments. Special interest groups, particularly those concerning environmentalism and global warming, have pushed very hard to get ethanol subsidies and ethanol requirements. These efforts have succeeded in Congress and with the executive branch (primarily because of the unbalanced influence of Iowa in Presidential primaries). As a result, farmers are replacing regular crops with ethanol corn. That’s what’s making them money, so we ALL are paying for it. Anybody with a solid understanding of economics saw this coming, yet Congress ignored this.
Yours is also a special interest group, pushing for government solutions to problems created by government solutions. There are two things that the world needs now. The first is for governments to GET OUT of markets, to stop tariffs and subsidies and meddling like they have. We are already reaping the revenge of unintended consequences, but they are natural consequences of creating artificial and forced demand for a product of dubious value (indeed, ethanol is worse for greenhouse gases, taken in totality, than leaving it alone). The second is not to push for government aid to impoverished nations, but to push for impoverished nations to respect and protect individual rights of their citizens, especially property rights. Europe was once as poor as Africa, anciently. The change in Europe came with “letting the nerds keep their lunch money.” Eastern Europe has been thriving and skyrocketing since their governments began establishing laws that protected individuals rights to their property, since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Common Terry is right to ask “why.” Here’s your answer. Here is also your solution.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Kids Against Hunger Cedar Rapids Iowa has packaged over 1 million meals since last year for .25 cents per meal. www.kidsagainsthungercr.com
April 17th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
i agree with danny f. above that the major food riots around the world seem to have a connection to bio-fuel production.
here’s the TIME article that discusses the situation:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
April 17th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
market as god and profit as prophet,
leads to death of children by hunger.
let africa feed its own before they sell us
coffee and cotton picked by hungry kids.
http://www.foodnotbombs.net/nigeria.html
April 17th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Common Terry,
Just a question. Where markets (that is, free choice) have been reigned in, has this approach ever helped people get food? And, on the flip side, where markets have been free to work, how many people have gone hungry? They’re selling us cotton so they can buy food. Stop despising work. Productive effort is what makes food, not government edict. These things do not simply exist. It takes people’s work to make them.
Let people deal with each other in terms of reason, instead of under the threat of force (the central problem in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Zimbabwe, and so on), and watch how hunger problems take care of themselves. Me, I’m dirt poor by American standards, living in a 200 square foot apartment, but freedom to keep what I produce and trade it means I don’t go hungry. Indeed, I even have internet access and bedsheets! That’s without accepting or applying for welfare (I reject the notion on principle). You should understand the real causes of hunger, and that has everything to do with governments and rebels and other power-seeking men in those countries, and little to do with markets.
April 17th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
hungry kids pick cotton
so they can buy food.
the rich land owner and the Gap stores
can get away with paying him pennies
because of the threat of starvation.
better to eat a little than to complain and get fired.
of course if the land was given to the people,
they could grow food instead of cotton
(and dont forget, cotton destroys the soil).
but then people wouldnt be so exploited.
and the Gap stock price may fall!
April 18th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Give the land to the people - that’s not worked out so rosy in Zimbabwe as the latest example. People growing their own food on little plots -how quaint. We can all step back to be a step above hunter gathers and all starve equally. On the other hand, a totally free market is not an answer - neither a market nor a corporation has a heart, but the simplistic “down with the land owners” is equally not a solution. Efficient food production is essential. Distribution that in some ways provides a safety net also seems essential.
Burning up corn as SUV fuel also seems to be without a heart.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Part of the root of this global food crisis is access and rights to land. Secure land rights are a powerful way to ensure food security and nutrition (as well as better health, stability, income, etc…)
Look at Vietnam: During the war, farmers whop were poor and desperate to feed their families joined the Viet Cong out of desperation. Once farmers received secured land rights, it cut Viet Cong recruitment by 80% and increased rice production by 30%. Today, Vietnam is the second largest rice producer in the world.
Investing in secure land rights lays the foundation for other targeted initiatives in poverty alleviation to work more successfully. (clean water, microcredit, etc.)
See organizations like the Rural Development Institute (www.rdiland.org) and Agros International (www.agros.org) for more on this. RDI has just been highlighted by the Clinton Global Initiative for their work on land rights and its contributions to global security and poverty alleviation.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
The less involvement of global economic “leaders” the better. Food security should be a local responsibility and local farmers should receive maximum support in sustaining the needs of their people. The globalization of food is having drastic consequences for billions of people so that a few hundred million can enjoy unbridled consumption.