The rising of fuel and food across the globe has left few unscathed and one can easily find themselves feeling the hit at both the pump and in the checkout line, enough to cause one to curtail their spending. Unemployment rates have spiked all time highs and worldwide everyone is tightening their belts. With many families incomes on the decline or remaining stagnate, one is beginning to see a grain of insight into the enormity of the effects on the world's food shortage.
As food prices have raised an average of 83%, some staple foods such as rice and corn have risen as much as 300%, it has led to a food shortage that is continuing to plagued nations across the globe. It is for this reason that the issue of poverty and hunger has become a priority on the minds of many. Today is a day to bring awareness to the realities of the situation as it is World Food Day, the theme of this year's Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is, World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.
“World Food Day provides an occasion to once again highlight the plight of 923 million undernourished people in the world. Most of them live in rural areas where their main source of income is the agricultural sector. Global warming and the biofuel boom are now threatening to push the number of hungry even higher in the decades to come.”
The crisis has left the most vulnerable members of society even more vulnerable, with families spending as much at 3/4th of their household income on food. When families reduce their food consumption it is women and children who suffer the most. According to the 2008 Global Hunger Index, which was just released by the International Food Policy Research Institute, 33 countries around the globe are experiencing “alarming or extremely alarming” levels of child mortality, child malnutrition and other hunger-related health problems.
What are the main causes?
1. Climate change , an increase in natural disasters
2. The increased consumption of biofuels , increased consumption of food and competition for land causing additional price increases.
3. Increased cost of fossil fuels , increased cost of farm inputs.
4. Increased demand for food products such as meat and dairy , increases consumption of grains.
5. Poor investment in small scale farming.
The food crisis is a global crisis and it has left the world in need of major reforms in the agricultural sector, especially in regards to increasing small scale farming and developing climate control policies. The crisis is not new and it was with this growing problem that world leaders from more than 100 nations came together in 2000 at the United Nations and agreed to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). One of the eight goals was to reduce the number of people in the world who live on $1 a day or less, in half by the year 2015. At the current rate what was set as a goal appears to be more of a dream.
Links:
One Campaign
Action Against Hunger
Oxfam – World must learn lessons from food price crisis
USAID Statement on World Food Day
FAO Statistics
