“We can make a difference. There is more than enough food in the world. For example in Italy, once the population's nutritional requirements are met, there would be sufficient food left over for all the under-nourished people in Ethiopia; in France the “extra” could feed the hungry of the Democratic Republic of Congo, while in the United States it could cover all the hungry in Africa,” Morris said.
This year's theme is 'Investing in agriculture for food security'.
“It’s very important that we think about hunger not of a lack of food but a lack of resources because we do provide for hungry people, countries like the United States provide food aid. But that’s only a stopgap measure. It’s a temporary measure. In the end, people need to be able to feed themselves. They need resources. They need land, tools, and they need the capacity to create food and economic security and pull themselves out of poverty. Too much of our aid is focused on dealing with emergencies. We need to spend more money on empowering people so they can feed themselves and pull themselves out of poverty,” Kripke [senior policy advisor with OXFAM] said.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN:
Agriculture may have become a minor player in many industrialized economies, but it must play a starring role on the world stage if we are to bring down the curtain on hunger.
Yet foreign aid for agriculture and rural development has continued to decline. From a total of over US$9 billion per year in the early 1980s, it fell to less than US$5 billion in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, an estimated 854 million people around the world remain undernourished.
Only investment in agriculture - together with support for education and health - will turn this situation around.
A total investment of only $5 billion is shameful, especially considering the hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year on wars.
You can help right now by visiting The Hunger Site and clicking on their 'Help Feed the Hungry' link.
If one man with a simple idea, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, can make such an enormous difference in the lives of the poor, there is hope for more innovative programs to emerge. Although governments have made commitments to end world poverty by 2015, their efforts towards that goal are sorely lacking.
World hunger isn't just about starving people in Africa. It's about the kid down the street who didn't have breakfast today because his parents rely on meager food bank donations each month. It's about the that pregnant woman you saw yesterday who can't afford to feed herself properly and who's in danger of giving birth to a malnourished baby. It's about that homeless man you passed on the street who hasn't eaten for days because his mental illness stops him from getting the help he needs.
It's where you live - every single day. Do something.
Further reading:
Hunger Facts: International
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