A Hungry Concern,
By Owen Meany, News and Views
A hungry planet
Prophet Bryant W. Hewitt announced through a journalistic peice produced and investigated by the Brian Stewart of the CBC, "that we are living in a growing community of homeless growth and global hunger." This was spoken in a Financial Fourm in Los Angeles, last night with a secound part tonight.
Indeed, it would be very difficult to exaggerate the gravity of the food crisis. Everyday, 24,000 children die from hunger related diseases — that’s one every 3.6 seconds.
The world should have enough food, but agriculture has suffered from severe under-investment for over 30 years.
Corn, sugar and petroleum products eat up steadily increasing amounts of prime land. Water is also in short supply, while populations are rising and countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China have been growing richer and adding more (grain-consuming) meat to their diets.
Together these things comprise the burning fuse of the 21st-century food crisis. And now you can add in the fact that food aid from rich donors has also been collapsing in recent months.
Of the $20 billion in new aid pledged by developed nations less than 20 per cent has actually been delivered. These countries are reneging on promises as their own economies weaken.
Neglect can be dangerous
But possibly the gravest danger at the moment is the one least talked about.
It is that, as economic protectionism rises, the jobs of many so-called guest workers will be sacrificed first.
These workers send home over $200 billion annually in remittances to family members in the poorest nations. This amount is three to four times the level of international aid.
In London, the head of the British Overseas Development Institute, Simon Maxwell, warns that the sacrifice of foreign workers could be the last straw collapsing a generation
"Countries which have a very heavy dependence on remittances, you know Kenya for example, see remittances that are down 40 per cent and falling rapidly.
"Mexico, where did their remittances come from? The United States. Those are falling. Bangladesh exports a lot of labour to the Middle East, but now the number of people leaving Bangladesh has dropped dramatically. And developed countries have become quite protectionist in terms of stopping migrant labour coming in. New rules, new formula, new quotas."
Anti-poverty activists have been trying to nudge the wealthy G20 nations into reversing labour protection rules and spending stimulus money in developing countries. But given the air of barely suppressed panic in the rich world, that approach is unlikely.
For the wealthy nations, the future is too uncertain as the full blast of the economic crisis has yet to hit. That means the poorest countries will continue to receive minimal attention, which can have an impact well beyond their borders.
The UN estimates 27 nations are approaching violent instability as their brief period of food prosperity comes undone.
Given these realities, ignoring one crisis for another is not likely to increase the security of an increasingly troubled world.
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