My video

This video is designed to generate awareness on the growing problem of hunger among Third World nations and how extreme poverty has created an inequality of distribution of food.  In creating this video I wanted to display images that were not overly offensive that could still conveyed my message well.  I provided a few ideas oh how to help the world’s current situation and gave the link to my own site so if people watch it on youtube.com they can be lead here and be provided multiple links that offer information on the global hunger crisis and possible solution.  Overall I wanted to get people thinking about something that really matters that they wouldn’t necessarily consider in their everyday lives.

Follow up on the World Bank meeting

The meeting went off without a hitch, the World Bank urged for other countries support in generating enough funds to help the World Food Program in providing relief for low income countries.  There is a diminishing amount of time, over the last three years alone, the food prices around the world have doubled, only creating greater poverty.  It was admitted that these meetings are generally all talk and no action, however president of the World Bank Robert Zoellick was determined not to make that the case this time, or so it was reported.  The World Food Program asked for $500 million for feeding programs, but are will simply have to wait on the responses of foreign government’s aid.  The Bank granted Haiti $10 million in response to mass rioting over food price which left one police officer dead.  Near the end of the meeting the Bank was pleased discuss the lending of $800 million to Africa for agricultural purposes, in which is double of the last amount they lent to Africa.

(The Daily Evergreen, sources taken from an article by Harry Dunphy of The Associated Press)

 

World Bank and IMF meet to discuss hunger this weekend.

This weekend will be a busy one for members of the World Bank and the IMF who are hosting a meeting in Washington D.C. on the 12th and 13thto discuss ways to fight hunger in among middle-income countries.  They will discuss the economic issues of recent global turbulence and changes that have had an impact which will be aided by a series of emergency aid packages and plans to boost the agricultural productivity among these countries says Work Bank president Robert B. Zoellick in a press statement. Their calling it the New Deal plan for a Global Food Policy that will adjust to rising food and oil prices that have had a significant impact on third world countries and their well being.  Africa, being a top priority, will be discussed in terms of their financial stability and developmental trade policies which will determine where the Bank and IMF take their positions on helping.  We all have our views on the World Bank and IMF and how much “good” they really do for a countries economy, “Zoellick has also proposed a plan to encourage sovereign wealth funds to invest one per cent of their US$3 trillion in assets in Africa development and a new approach to help ensure that high energy and commodity prices translate into improvements in the lives of the poor,” so if I can find any more information on how the meeting went and the decisions that were made in it, I will be posting on it because It is important to hold these organizations to their words and make them accountable.

(http://allafrica.com/stories/200804080288.html)

 

the war in Iraq

Something we as Americans are subject to everyday is news briefings on the war in Iraq.  The downside of these news briefings is that we are subject only to what the media (whom all networks are owned by only a handful of corporations) wants us to hear.  In my personal opinion the coverage seen on television focuses on a selected few topics so I decided to see what the food distribution situation is like for the Iraqis, turns out its not so good.  Some 23 million people in Iraq currently rely on the Baghdad government for food rations.  Our engagement in a war on terrorism ended us up in Iraq, due to this most of the citizens of Iraq have been left without food an water, an estimated $80 million is needed just to start to alleviate the crisis, estimates from the UN report that military actions will have destroyed so much of the sanitation infrastructures, it will result in 50 percent of the population without safe drinking water, all in all this has caused a major flee of the country by the Iraqi people. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2756771.stm)

New campaigns

There are many sites that have been created to raise awareness of third world hunger; I decided this week to look for some new and/or current campaigns to help the situation.  One site:  http://www.care.org/campaigns/world-hunger/index.asp, gives us descriptive details of the problem and how to help. Every minute of every day 21 children die somewhere in the world due to malnutrition or another preventable disease, and what doesn’t kill you does not necessarily make you stronger, malnutrition and also lead to blindness, deformities, and brain damage.  This is why it is so important to support these kinds of sites and learn about new ways to help them, one suggestion from this particular website is to learn about how you contribute and take their Hunger Quiz, because you can begin to help until you first eliminate your contribution to the problem.  So support the campaigns to stop third world hunger and do your part to help by taking part in simple things like online quizzes, or at the very least get educated on the matter.

There’s fast food and there’s hunger.

Something I surely never thought about before, all of the fast food restaurants in the developed countries actually contribute more to third world hunger than one might think.  One third of all the grains in the world are used to feed the livestock’s,  while people consume almost all of the rice, a lot of the corn and wheat products are used as feed, some statistics are saying as much as 80 percent.  The animals used to make all our hamburgers, chicken burgers, roast beef sandwiches and other $1.99 goodies are consuming a huge majority of resources.  One half of the water used in the U.S. is for grain productions that feed cattle, that is just in the United States.  Put in the factor of all the exports that are needed to produce fast food and you can imagine the amount being used.  When these exports are purchased, companies want the lowest cost possible and will search of the lowest bidder to the ends of the earth to find it, you there wouldn’t be a dollar menu if grains weren’t bought at a ridiculously low price, a wage someone has to live off might I add.  When it costs 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat and 2,500 gallons to produce a pound of beef, we have to realize who suffers the most. (http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Poverty/Hunger/Causes.asp)

Hunger and Politics

I was kind of curious on what some of our current presidential craniates’ thoughts were on third world hunger and was about to find another blog: (http://usfoodpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/01/voter-education-guide-from.html), who had posted the following:

Here is one of the questions from the questionnaire:

In your eyes, what is the single most effective policy measure to enable food insecure individuals to become food secure? What will you do to promote this policy?

Hillary Clinton’s response to this question highlights economic issues. We need to address the root cause of the food security problem – economic insecurity. I have proposed a new economic blueprint that will put us on a path toward shared prosperity by creating more good jobs, restoring fairness to our economy, & renewing the bargain that if you work hard you can get ahead.

Barack Obama’s response emphasizes the Food Stamp Program.  Our food stamp program targets those who need it the most & expands in times of economic trouble. It also helps its recipients eat more healthily. I will increase funding & protect it from cuts. Most importantly, I will provide the leadership this country needs by speaking about the key role that food stamps play in alleviating hunger.

After a thorough search I was unable to find information on Senator John Mccain’s position on world hunger, or if he had even ever talked about it.  I am an avid viewer of the presidential debates and in my own opinion the question of third world hunger is not addressed as much as it should be and I just cannot figure out why.  This is not a blog that is designed to address those issues, however in its own right this is a fast growing problem in the world and needs to be put into consideration.  Should third world hunger and the potential solutions be more carefully examined in politics today? My answer is absolutely, especially when the country has a presidential election coming up, it is our chance as a nation to address this problem more.

AIDS’ link to hunger

I asked myself what major link is there between hunger and the AIDS epidemic. I did some research and found an article on just that.  In August of 2005 a 3 day conference was held in Dufar, Africa to discuss the link between their hunger and the AIDS crisis.  There were more than 200 developmental experts among different countries including Africa there to try and figure out solutions, some of which were good but obviously unrealistic, others showed a sign of possibility but did lacked the ability to impact everyone in need.  One good point brought up though was the link between the link among HIV/AIDS and agriculture.  The amount of agricultural workers to have died due to AIDS is over eight million in just the last 10 years; this has a substantial consequence to the citizens of Africa.  Furthermore the extreme rate of poverty has forced people to work more and more hours to afford little food; the article stated that this is a contributor to the spread of the virus.  (http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-04/2005-04-14-voa71.cfm?CFID=23999399&CFTOKEN=89030392)

Food crisis continues due to food shortage and rising prices.

The World Food Programme is one of the leading contributors to the starving that is seen around the world.  Just today the WFP released a statement from Rome asking for more help globally as their efforts to relieve developing nations struggle due to food shortages and rising prices, “without additional contributions, WFP will be able to reach less people” said Director Joseph Sheeran.  Last year alone the organization would need US$2.9 Billion to cover the food cost and projects slated for 2008, but now due to rising fuel and food prices their estimates have raised by at least US$0.5 Billion more.  These estimates (US$3.4 Billion) will only cover the projects of 2008 and does not take into account and unforeseen emergencies that could occur, things like drought and heavy storm often occur during projects the WFP ensures us.  Their plans for 2008 to feed the mouths of 73 million people in 78 different countries will only happen if donations from government organizations and million dollar corporations around the world pick up and/or prices fall.  Right now people in third world nations are having to spend more of their household income on food than ever before, the WFP tries is best to help these families to whatever extent it can but it too is seeing suffers from rising cost. Counties like: Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Haiti, Djibouti, the Gambia, Tajikistan, Togo, Chad, Benin, Myanmar, Cameroon, Niger, Senegal, Yemen and Cuba are seeing the worst of rising cost and food shortages.  The economies of the wealthy nations are having the biggest impact on the food crisis, countries including the U.S., China, India, and many European prove to be the biggest battle for the WFP.  Their effort will continue as scheduled, however unless there is a change soon many will indeed go hungry.(http://www.wfp.org/english/?ModuleID=137&Key=2778)

Keeping them oppressed

Much of the third world hunger issues has to do with not only how to fix the problem, but who’s causing it.  The recent article I read was on the booming Ethanol businesses contribution to third world hunger.  Yes, this might be the next best thing to fossil fuels, but I set out to find out how it affected the global food market.  The demand for corn to be converted into Ethanol based fuel has tripled over the past three years from 18 million tons to 55 million tons of crop used in production.  This affects the world market supply of corn in a few different ways.  The prices of corn have risen tremendously, meaning that the cost of feeding livestock to produce meats, and other proteins like eggs has also risen.  Many Asian farmers are worried about keeping up with the rising demand, which in turn enables a country to produce enough exports let alone food to feed a community.  There are over 76 million new people to feed each year and grain stocks are at their lowest in 34 years due to a rise in demand for Ethanol producing crops, it is getting harder and harder to feed the population. Along with the greatly reducing grain crops also comes the reduction in ability to feed cattle, chickens, pigs and others.  The wealthy’s demand for cheap auto fuel is causing mass hunger in third world countries as more and more of their land is used to produce the exports we consume. (http://www.theglobalist.com)