On the brink of famine

Despite growing attention in the world media and expanding efforts by many organizations, the world hunger crisis continues to worsen. There are innumerable people around us, who fight daily hunger and starvation, and still many people, defeated, at last, have now found a corner and sleeping until death finds them. The basic staples that feed the world- wheat, rice, corn continue their inexorable rise in cost and scarcity. Sudan, Zambia, Ethiopia and throughout the Horn of Africa, there is a dearth of food and people are not able to find a four square meal. The scarcity has become so acute that presently poor families are spending up to 80% of their budget on food. Every year 3.5 million children are dying due to malnutrition.
This crisis has its roots in four interlinked trends. The first is the chronically low productivity of farmers in the poorest countries. The farmers have little means to pay for the high prices of good quality seeds, multi-nutrient fertilizers and modern irrigation system. The second is the misguided policy in the U.S. and Europe of subsidizing the diversion of food crops to produce biofuels like corn based ethanol. The third is the drastic climate change; while it is raining day and night in one part; many other regions are experiencing drought like conditions. Take for example the recent droughts in Australia and Europe, which cut the global production of grain in 2005 and 2006. The fourth is the growing global demand for food and feed grain brought by the surging populations and income. To put in short, the rising demand has little supply, with the poor taking the hardest blow. Brisk actions are required or else food riots will become a commonplace in the entire world as it is presently in countries like Egypt, Yemen, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal. Newspapers in Egypt are reporting that people have started to go for inferior commodities lacking in nutritional value; they are buying less and less meat/poultry/cheese and they are also cutting down on expenses for education and health expenses, etc. the country is experiencing many price-related protests. The world has not experienced anything quite like this before. In the face of rising food prices and spreading hunger, the social order is beginning to break down in some countries. In several provinces in Thailand, for instance, rustlers steal rice by harvesting fields during the night. In response, Thai villagers with distant fields have taken to guarding ripe rice fields with loaded shotguns
It is time that the U.S. and Europe should abandon their policies of subsidizing the conversion of food into biofuels. The U.S. government gives farmers a taxpayer-financed subsidy of 51¢ per gal. of ethanol to divert corn from the food and feed-grain supply. There may be a case for biofuels produced on lands that do not produce foods--tree crops (like palm oil), grasses and wood products--but there's no case for doling out subsidies to put the world's dinner into the gas tank. We urgently need to weather proof the agricultural activities. While we cannot stop the clouds from pouring, but a small measure like a farm pond- that collects rain water, can do wonders in a dry spell and turn a famine into a bountiful harvest. The world has already committed to establishing a Climate Adaptation Fund to help poor regions climate-proof vital economic activities such as food production and health care but has not yet acted upon the promise.
What is true for food will be true for energy, water and other increasingly scarce resources. We can combat these problems--as long as we act rapidly. New energy sources like solar thermal power and new energy-saving technologies like plug-in hybrid automobiles can be developed and mobilized within a few years. Environmentally sound fish-farming can relieve pressures on the oceans. The food crisis provides not only a warning but also an opportunity. We need to invest vastly more in sustainable development in order to achieve true global security and economic growth.
What we do know:
· Wheat prices are up 120%
· Rice prices have risen 75%
· Poor families spend up to 80% of their budget on food
· According to the World Bank, an estimated 100 million people have fallen into poverty in the last 2 years
· Prices are expected to stay high through 2015
· 21 of 36 countries in a food security crisis are in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations FAO
· West Africa, the Horn of Africa, and fragile states are especially vulnerable.
But what we need to know is that still there are places and people who waste food. A lot of food is wasted every day at our hostels, house and hotels. For every unfortunate who sleeps starving, there is his fortunate counter-part who just threw his supper because he did not find it tantalizing. It’s a request to everyone who reads this- kindly think twice, before you waste food, about the 3.5 million children and the families that die every year due to hunger and starvation. There are a few who lives to eat, a little more who eats to live but there are millions dying without eating.