Hungerand poverty are two faces of the same coin. As food prices rise, more peopleare pushed into poverty ? helpless in their daily struggles to put food ontheir tables. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, World Food Day (10/16) is anotheropportunity to raise awareness of the problems of hunger and poverty, and toempower individuals to find long-term solutions.
TheUnited Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization was founded 68 years ago onOctober 16th. Since 1981, the day has been observed as World Food Day.
"TheUnited States National Committee for World Food Day is made up of 450non-profits organizations working on hunger-related issues,"Patricia Young says.The national coordinator for World Food DayUSA says for a quarter of a century, the U.S.-based coalition has been workingto raise awareness among Americans about hunger ? in the United States and aroundthe world ? and ways they can fight it.
"Wedo broadcasts for colleges and cable stations and so forth. We have materialsfor schools k[indergarten] to [grade] 12," she says. "Other thanthat, there are symposiums, workshops, food collections, walks and runs and soforth."
Hunger,Young says, is the immediate result of poverty, in which a variety of socialand economic factors come into play.
"Thereis always a gap between the rich and the poor both in the United States andaround the world. That gap seems to be growing," she says."Why arethere poor people in the midst of abundance? Being elderly is certainly a bigproblem. Single women household is a problem. The changing labor market createsthe problem. What's happening now (in the economy) is affecting not just thepoor, but all of the society."
WorldFood Day is every day for World Hunger Year, an organization that responds tothe emergency food needs of poor and hungry Americans. Known by its acronym,WHY connects needy individuals with local food assistance programs such as foodstamps, and school breakfasts.President Tim Ogborn says WHY has also been working with a number oflocal groups and international non-governmental organizations to address whatit sees as the underlying systemic problems at the root of hunger. On WorldFood Day, Ogborn says, WHY and its partners are launching a National Call toAction to end the global food crisis:
"Thiscall to action asks, for one, that we stabilize prices for farmers andconsumers globally by regulating the finance sector so that it cannot enterinto the food sector in the way it has," he says. "(It also proposes)establishing and strengthening strategic food reserves, suspending theinternational trade investments in industrial-scale bio-fuels, reforming ourfood-aid policies, and expanding fair trade rather than what has been thepolicy of the federal government to expand free trade. We want to re-balancethe power in the food system, and reduce the political influence ofagribusiness corporations on public policy."
Ogbornsays this call to action ? a project WHY calls 'Step Up to the Plate' ? alsodraws attention to the importance of environmentally-friendly agriculture.
"Weneed to move toward making agriculture more environmentally sustainable,through focusing on supporting family farming, with agro-ecologicalpractices," he says. "We need to direct state and national foreignpolicies around the world toward investing more in agro-ecological farmingrather than agro-industrial which has been the practice the last 30 years orso. There is more and more evidence around the world that sustainableagricultural systems not only are good for the environment, but they are moreproductive per unit-area than traditional industrial forms ofagriculture."
Ogborn says the current world food crisis ? with more than900 million people in the world chronically short of food ? will only start toimprove when society looks at food not as a commodity but as a right. He saysevery crisis presents an opportunity. The current crisis, Ogborn believes, canbe the opportunity to redesign food systems in ways that foster social andeconomic justice, and that move the world closer to the elusive goal of endingpoverty and hunger.
