Thought-provoking articles that deal with hunger and the issues involved in meeting the hunger challenge.
To outsiders it is just another vegetable. To South Koreans, the long-leafed cabbage is part of the national identity as the most common staple ingredient of kimchi, the spicy pickled vegetable dish that accompanies every meal. But a frosty spring and hot summer followed by autumn floods ruined this year's crop and caused prices to rise between three- and fivefold – though some whisper darkly that hoarders have contributed to the problem.
“we” being the rich world -- asked the poorest countries to draw up comprehensive agriculture investment plans and tell us which were the highest priority projects to boost food production. Do that, we informed them, and we will help finance the projects from a new multi-donor trust fund called the Global Agriculture Food Security Program, or GAFSP.
In his new book, Three Famines, Tom Keneally investigates mass starvations in Ireland in the mid-19th century and in Bengal and Ethiopia in the mid and late 20th century. Here he considers just how far hungry people will go to stay alive (..) The Red Cross and World Food Program estimate that the average healthy person needs 2010 calories of energy daily to do their normal tasks and resist disease. Yet one of the first coping mechanisms, from the cabins of Ireland to the huts of Bengal and the farmhouses and tuqals of Ethiopia, is to economise on the amount of food eaten, thus reducing the intake necessary for good health.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans to end a development summit meeting of world leaders on Wednesday by announcing a huge increase in aid to improve the health of women and children, but independent specialists said they were skeptical about the amount of actual new money committed, given the global economic crisis. Governments and private aid organizations committed to spending more than $40 billion toward that goal, Robert Orr, the assistant secretary general leading the effort, said Tuesday, and pledges were still flowing in.