The FAO Hunger Campaign which I discussed in my August 22^nd post has now been offically launched in Ghana. The global campaign was launched in May and is designed to collect over one million signatures to present to the United Nations on World Food Day, October 16, 2010.

This article is taken from GhanaNewsNow.com.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation’s office in Accra (FAO) has launched an international campaign against hunger in Ghana. Dubbed: “The One Billionhungry Campaign”, the programme highlights the growing problem of global hunger, which now affects more than one billion people worldwide.

The aim of the campaign is to act as a reminder to world leaders to eliminate global hunger and deliver the L’ Aquilla statement on food security by scaling up investments in agriculture and addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty.

Launching the campaign in Accra, Mr Musa Saihou Mbenga, Deputy Regional Representative for Africa, said world leaders gathered in L’ Aquila in July 2009 and signed a joint statement on food security, which was endorsed at the World Summit of Food Security in November 2009.

He said the leaders had agreed on five principles to reduce hunger and increase investment in agriculture through country-owned plans, among others, and the role of the FAO was to speak for the hungry, since over a quarter of a billion pe00ple in Africa currently suffered from malnutrition and 30 per cent of Africans faced hunger.

He said the worst hit areas were in Central and Eastern Africa with food crisis linked to conflicts occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia and Ethiopia in addition to a worsening food crisis in Niger which had increased the number of people affected in the Sahel.

The Country Representative said the, one billion hungry campaign was launched worldwide by the FAO on, May 11,2010 and it was a carefully orchestrated drive to attract one million signatures to a petition calling on national and international leaders to – move hunger onto the top of their political agenda.

He said the signatures were intended to be symbolically presented during World Food Day observances at the UN headquarters in New York in the fall of 2010.
He said hunger, a quiet crisis, was barely in the news yet current calculations showed that close to one billion people worldwide continued to go hungry on a daily basis and the UN had agreed to the target of reducing the number by half in 2015.

Mr Mbenga said boosting Africa’s food production had been a major cause of concern for governments and regional institutions in their efforts to achieve food security.

He said, however, issues such as rural poverty, investment in the agriculture sector and marketing constraints had also been highlighted as posing serious challenge to hunger reduction.

He said the FAO operated throughout the region, alleviating hunger and building the capacity to develop, adding that regional support programmes to reduce hunger included the recently implemented ED Food Facility programme, which was operational in 16 countries, as well as the special programme for food security in 35 countries across Africa.

The following (edited) article appeared in REUTERS, yesterday. It provides a clear picture of the devastation caused by the the flooding. It also gives a clear warning of the present and growing danger facing the survivors.

Stop Hunger Now is working to provide aid for these victims, but we need help. Please respond. Working together we can help avert even worse suffering.  

By Zeeshan Haider Zeeshan Haider – Sun Aug 29

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A month after torrential monsoon rains triggered Pakistan’s worst natural disaster on record, flood waters are starting to recede — but there are countless survivors at risk of death from hunger and disease.

The disaster has killed at least 1,643 people, forced more than six million from their homes, inflicted billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure and the vital agriculture sector and stirred anger against the U.S.-backed government which has struggled to cope.

Despite generally lower water levels, officials said they were still battling to save the delta town of Thatta, 70 km (45 miles) east of Karachi, in the southern province of Sindh.

Water has broken the banks of the Indus near Thatta and also topped a feeder canal running off the river.

“Thatta will be inundated if this water does not flow into the sea. The situation is very critical,” Sindh relief commissioner Riaz Ahmed Soomro told Reuters. “We are trying to fill in breaches and strengthen embankments to save Thatta.”

Soomro said about 95 percent of the delta town’s 300,000 residents had already fled.

“Only male members of the families have stayed back to save their property. Children, women and old people, all of them have left Thatta.”

The floods began in late July after torrential monsoon downpours over the upper Indus basin in northwest Pakistan. Officials said water levels were receding on most rivers and they expected no rain in the coming few days.

“We believe that it will take another 10 to 12 days for rivers in Sindh to come to normal flow. Therefore, we still need to be watchful,” said Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, the government’s top weather official.

The death toll was expected to rise significantly as the bodies of the many missing people are found. There is no official estimate of the number of missing because mass displacements have made accounting for them almost impossible.

The United Nations said aid workers were increasingly worried about disease and hunger — especially among children — in areas where even before the disaster acute malnutrition was high.

The receding floods have left behind huge pools of stagnant water, which in turn are breeding disease.

At an army-run clinic at a school in the village of Lasori Khar, hundreds of men, women and children queued up to see army doctors. Victims are suffering from skin disease, dysentery, depression and malaria.

“There are mosquitoes all around. Children are getting sick because of malaria,” said Zehra Mai, a woman from the village.

U.N. officials say an estimated 72,000 children, affected by severe malnutrition, were at high risk of dying.

Even before the floods, Pakistan’s economy was fragile. Growth, forecast at 4.5 percent this fiscal year, is now predicted at anything between zero and 3 percent.

The floods have damaged at least 3.2 million hectares (7.9 million acres) — about 14 percent of Pakistan’s cultivated land — according to the United Nation food agency.

The total cost in crop damages is believed to be about 245 billion rupees ($2.86 billion.)

This morning in Chapel Hill, Stop Hunger Now held the second of this year’s University Million Meal events. Once again, I came away from the event with my spirit renewed and my batteries fully recharged.

Over 500 students from University of North Carolina, North Carolina Central University and Peace all joined forces to package over 100,000 meals for hungry school children in Haiti. There was also a large contingent of girl scout volunteers taking part, as well.

Packaging 100,000 meals is no small accomplishment, however it’s done. But this morning’s event was just plain old fun. There was music, more than a little dancing and lots of laughter.

There was also a strong demonstration of caring on the part of young people that could have been spending their Saturday in numerous other ways. But they didn’t. They came to Fetzer Gym and worked hard to help end hunger on our lifetime.

What a wonderful way for these students to begin a new semester. They will all take part in a lot of events this coming year. Of that I have no doubt. But, this morning they all helped change the world, And I, for one, think that is a pretty damned impressive way to start off a semester.

The real real reason there are over a billion hungry people in the world is not a lack of resources. The only reason there are over 25,000 of our family dying every day because of hunger is that there is not the political will to eradicate this global scourge.

Ending the obscenity of hunger in our lifetime is possible. It is the right thing to do. And, not making the effort to end hunger is morally reprehensible.

That’s why we need more leaders like Brazil’s president, Luiz Lula da Silva. President da Silva has been a staunch supporter of ending poverty and hunger ever since he took office. His signing of the FAO petition is just one more example of his leading by example.

Please follow his example and sign the FAO petition. We can get a million signatures by the end of November. And each signature states that “we want to end hunger in our lifetime.”

Brazilian President blows whistle on hunger
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Published on Aug 26, 2010 – 8:49:52 AM

BRASILIA, Aug. 26, 2010 – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has joined a global anti-hunger campaign organized by FAO, signing his name to FAO’s “1billionhungry” international petition and blowing the campaign’s yellow “whistle against hunger”.

The whistle-blowing took place at a ceremony held in Brasilia. Nearly half a million people worldwide have so far signed FAO’s “1billionhungry” petition calling on world leaders to make the eradication of hunger their top priority. Supporters of the campaign are invited to”blow the whistle” on hunger.

You can sign the petition at: http://www.1billionhungry.org/

One million signatures:

FAO’ goal is to obtain one million signatures by the end of November and present them to the 192 Member States due to attend FAO’s Governing Council then. Currently, about one billion people in the world suffer chronic hunger.

“Hunger hurts and kills. And we can’t be indifferent in the face of such suffering,” said FAO Representative in Brazil Hélder Muteia at the ceremony, before inviting Lula da Silva to whistle.
Last night’s ceremony coincided with another significant anti-hunger initiative — the launch of Brazil’s new National Policy on Food and Nutritional Security, which took place during a meeting of the Brazilian Food and Nutritional Security Council (CONSEA).

Brazil — commitment against hunger:

Under recent reforms, the right to food is now one of the social rights guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution. It is upheld by Brazil’s Food and Nutritional Security Law. Separate legislation requires that 30 % of the food products used in school meals must be bought from family farmers.

Muteia expressed warm praise for Brazil’s ongoing national Zero Hunger strategy and the country’s determined effort to promote social inclusion, and called on other countries to do the same.

1billionhungy Project:

The “1billionhungry” project is a major communication campaign intended to rally global support for an end to hunger in the world. Other celebrities who have signed the petition include actor Jeremy Irons, musician Chucho Valdés and Real Madrid’s goalkeeper, Iker Casillas.

© Copyright YubaNet.com

The new blog site I discovered this morning had a interesting name: Desertification. It is excellent.The writer, Willem van Cotthem, does a masterful job of bring forward issues of climate change and food security. The site is definitely worth a look.

Food Crisis Threatens Bolivia Due to Climate Change

2010-08-23 10:54:32     Xinhua      Web Editor: Zhang Xu

Persistent drought, cold weather and flooding, all attributed to climate change, are threatening Bolivia with a food crisis, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and experts have recently warned.

FAO coordinator Einstein Tejada said one fifth of Bolivia’s territory now suffer from the effects of climate change, causing food prices to rise.

The most vulnerable zone is the Andean area, hit by a long-running drought, he added.

According to the government, more than 16,000 head of cattle and over 24,000 hectares of wheat, bean, corn and other crops have been affected by the drought.

“Bolivia is affected by all the climate phenomenon in the world” except the hurricanes, he said.

Despite the government’s efforts to lessen these effects on agriculture and livestock, the impact on food security will be felt, as well as imbalances in the ecosystems, he said.

“We cannot deny the strong impact climate change has on the production systems,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) said the drought and cold weather would fuel inflation due to the negative impact on food production.

The drought is a possible risk for the impact on food production, BCB President Gabriel Loza told Xinhua on Saturday.

Economic analyst Luis Ballivian said growth in the agriculture-livestock sector dropped 0.5 percent in the first half of 2010 due to the drought and cold weather, causing higher food prices.

“The projections for the last six months of 2010 say that the inflation gradually will stabilize around the long term goal of 4 percent. However, by the end of the year this could increase to some 6 percent, due to the increase in food prices,” Ballivian said.

In the provinces of Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca, Tarija, Cochabamba, Oruro and La Paz, food prices are threatening to soar in coming weeks.

The flooding in Pakistan continues to exact a horrendous toll. In this excellent article by Willam Lambers, he reports on the WFP assessment that more relief aid is desperately needed.

Stop Hunger Now continues to work with our partners, but far more needs to be done. Please consider helping. Food is needed for six million victims.

High Energy Biscuits delivered by helicopter in Sindh, 23rd August 2010.

Photo: World Food Programme

“Why should there be hunger and deprivation in any land, in any city, at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? There is no deficit in human resources. The deficit is in human will.”  
                                                                      Martin Luther King, Jr

Dr. King got it absolutely right. Ending hunger and poverty in our lifetime is not about resources. There is no deficiet in food to feed the hungry of the world.

The true deficit is in the will necessary to make it happen. We are short on morality. We lack compassion. We do not have a deep enough spirituality. Our love of God is too shallow to end hunger.

It is that simple. It is that sad.

Stop Hunger Now believes our generation can end hunger forever. That is our goal. That is our mission. Working together, we can erase the obscenity of hunger. Please join in the movement to heal the world.

Ending hunger is a necessary and critical step in achieving a world where justice reigns, and global peace can be a reality. If we want peace we will work for justice. If we want justice we will see that the hungry get fed.

Join with us to make it happen. Working together, we can change the world. Stop hunger. Now!

 “Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity’s golden ladder.”  — MAIMONIDES

What a truly golden proposition Maimonides gives us. This should, indeed, be the goal for all of us who stand beside those in need.

Stop Hunger Now feeds hungry school childen around the world. We feed them every day. We feed them because they have to have food in their bellies to survive. But, we feed them at school where they get that primary education which is the critical first step out of poverty and constant hunger. We are on that highest step.

We see the day when hunger will be just a memory. We know it won’t come tomorrow, or next week, or even next year. But faithfulness to the call God has placed on our lives demands nothing less than our unending committment to making sure that day arrives.

Join with us to end hunger in our lifetime. Working together we can make it happen. Maimonides would say it’s the summit of charity’s golden ladder. I would simply say it’s the right thing to do.