Yesterday, for the second time in less than a week, ONE members, staff and interns set off on the metro from our headquarters in Washington DC to Capitol Hill to meet with Senate offices about a top anti-poverty priority: global agricultural development and the fight to end hunger.

We went to deliver messages from the almost 30,00 ONE members who took action through our Invest In Agriculture Campaign, which calls on senators to fully-fund President Obama’s request for $1.36 billion in global agricultural development funding.

Those 30,000 messages poured in during just a few days, as ONE members went all out over the July 4th holiday weekend to convince their senators to tackle the root causes of hunger, at a time when this most basic form of poverty and suffering is on the rise. In fact, the number of hungry people in the world passed the 1 billion mark this year.

Reacting to the urgency of the humanitarian crisis and buoyed by such strong backing from so many of you, nine of us, including myself, made the trek over to visit 99 Senators offices on a hot summer DC morning, knowing that we had an opportunity to make a last minute impact before the final appropriations decisions were made.

In meetings with more than fifteen senate staff members, we hammered home your message that by investing in agriculture, we can not only stop hunger, but help end the instability it causes, as demonstrated by last year’s food price riots in countries across the developing world.

We met with key staff in the offices of Senators Burris, Bayh, Menendez, Murkowski, Reed, Bill Nelson, Voinovich, Shaheen, Pryor, Barasso, Hagan, Cantwell, Inhoffe, Johaans, and Johnson. The reception we got was enthusiastic and universally impressed with the passion and commitment ONE members are showing in speaking out on this important issue.

And the timing of your messages to the Senate could not have been better. We delivered your messages just before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations met to deal with the very bill that controls this critical agricultural funding.

This campaign is also poised to have a global impact. When President Obama meets with the other world leaders the second half of this week at the G8 Summit in Italy, one of the central issues on the agenda will be the global response to the scourge of rising food prices and the plummeting agricultural yields in the developing world. If the Senate decides to fully fund President Obama’s request for $1.36 billion in global agricultural development funding, it will set a powerful example for the rest of the world and help build global momentum toward our ultimate goal of ending hunger.

But our work on this important issue isn’t done. The subcommittee has marked up the bill and now it moves to the full Appropriations Committee, so we’re making one last push today to make sure our senators know that as ONE members and constituents we’re counting on them to Invest In Agriculture.

-Tyler Rattray