"The news from the World Food Programme is even grimmer: A child dies of hunger every six seconds, and hunger now kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined."
Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System," says the right to food should be seen as a human right. But, he says, powerful corporate food distributors control too much of the world's food supply to ensure a robust global food supply.
Patel says "2008 was a record year in terms of harvest. There's more food per person in 2008 than there's ever been in history. The problem is not food, but how we distribute it."
Other causes for the rise in global hunger have been documented. They include:
• Surging oil costs have made it more expensive to harvest, fertilize, store and deliver food.
• The rise in droughts and hurricanes worldwide has wiped out crops and made farming more difficult.
• The world is running out of the raw materials -- water, oil, good farmland -- needed to keep the food system intact.
"A lot of people have begun to understand at various levels that the food system, as it is, can't go on," says Paul Roberts, author of "The End of Food."
Every time an American bites down on a steak or hamburger, they're contributing to global hunger, Roberts says. As other countries become more affluent, they're copying our meat-heavy diet. The problem: It takes so much grain and other resources to produce meat, he says.
"If the rest of the world were to eat like we do, the planet would collapse," Roberts says.
to read the full article by John Blake, "As children starve, world struggles for solution" visit CNN.com's website.
it's a shock isn't it? that there are mothers who would have to make this tough choice even today. you'd think this problem should've been solved at the end of the previous century but it's not. makes you feel guilty for eating that dessert even when you're stomach was about to burst; because now you know that there is a little child somewhere who's going to die because there's not enough food to keep him alive until his next birthday. even after all my raves and rants about how unfair my life has been, i'm still 'lucky' compared to those kids. my mother didn't have to make that kind of choice.
my brother was a project engineer in constructing a small school in one of the depressed areas here in bicol. it's a coastal barangay in sipocot. because of the distance from naga, he had to sleep there and go home only during the weekends. there's already an existing school building but they're adding another room since the first one is poorly made. school buildings usually serve as evacuation centers when disasters strike these areas during the typhoon season.
he told me that there was even one family there who have 18 kids and the oldest is not even 20 yet! one day he was eating his lunch (which was also his breakfast), sardines cooked with eggs. since some of the kids live far from the school, they bring their own baon (packed lunch). he sat next to 2 kids (brothers) who were about to eat their baon. he saw them share the rice but as he waited for the ulam, he saw them take out packet of toyo (soy sauce) and asin (salt) and mixed it with the rice! when the kids saw him staring (prolly with that shocked expresion on his face), they walked away and ate far away from him.
we remember hearing stories like these from our parents since our parents didn't come from buena familias. but as he was telling me the story i saw how sad and frustrated he was. my brother said he lost his appetite after that and decided to give all his food to the 2 brothers. he ended up just drinking coffee that day. when he saw the two kids sharing the rice mixed with salt and soy sauce, he promised not to leave a single grain of rice on his plate from then on. he told me that he would've understand seeing them eat tuyo (dried fish), but it looks like their family can't even afford to buy it. so when poor people can't even afford to buy the so-called poor man's food, what are they going to eat now?
i can understand how my brother felt after seeing something like this. we're so lucky. darned lucky. so when he sees my cousins playing with what they eat, he gets angry. after all, rice doesn't grow overnight; and there are empty stomachs who would love to have even just a few of it even without any ulam.
made me feel guilty for all the food i wasted all those years.
God gives every bird its food, but He does not thow it into its nest. - J. G. Holland
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