Feeding the world - We must do more than we are doing

ON A fine summer’s morning it is hard to imagine that more than 1,000 people die every hour of every day from hunger-related causes.

It is hard to accept that more than two billion people face a daily challenge to cope with soaring food prices and that putting a meal, no matter how basic, on the table demands ever-greater proportions of a poor family’s income.

It is even more challenging to accept, as some experts have warned, that the current crisis is not temporary and that unless it is confronted, it will deepen and have an effect on societies that imagine themselves immune to something as remote and as unheard of as food shortages.

There are many reasons, some of them man-made, for this.

Oil prices, already at unprecedented levels, continue to rise, intensifying droughts, floods, cyclones and earthquakes, the use of land to produce biofuels and the depletion of global food reserves have all combined to cause food shortages and inflation.

Climate change is having an increasing impact too.

Spain’s worst drought in decades has forced Barcelona to import drinking water in an unprecedented effort to avoid rationing. The Mediterranean coastal city is among the areas hardest hit by the worst springtime drought in that country since records began 60 years ago. Food-producing regions in Australia remain in the grip of drought too, making the development of drought-resistant crops all the more urgent.

The disasters that have killed tens of thousands of people in Burma and China in recent days show that not even rich and powerful nations are immune to hunger caused by catastrophic natural disasters.

The use of tariffs and subsidies, as well as import and export vetoes, all established to protect incomes and stifle competition, have played their part too. We have benefited tremendously from these schemes but maybe we should make ourselves more aware of the impact these interventions are having in weaker societies.

It might just put our great wealth and privilege in a different perspective.

The relative enrichment of large countries like China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh, which make up nearly half the world’s population, has led to increased demands for nearly every commodity and thereby raising prices.

On the facing page Josette Sheeran, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program (UNWFP) and other experts in the field offer suggestions about what must be done.

Ms Sheeran’s analysis is stark as it is challenging. She warns of advancing hunger and malnutrition fuelled by aggressively soaring food prices. She points out that even before this crisis, there were more hungry and malnourished people than ever — 850 million.

But now an estimated 100 million more are joining their ranks.

She points out that just when the world needs the UNWFP most its operations have been hampered: their funds buy 40% less food today than they did just 10 months ago. But what can we to do about it this fine, May morning?

For generations the rich nations have made efforts of varying effectiveness and commitment to try to end world hunger but obviously not enough and a lot more needs to be done.

We have always tried to do our bit and aid agencies will confirm that Ireland has been relatively generous and few will begrudge the taxpayers’ millions that go towards overseas development aid with the caveat that it is properly used.

We are now the fifth-highest per capita contributors of overseas aid, spending 0.5% of gross national product — a figure that approaches the United Nations target of 0.7% of GNP on overseas aid by 2012. The newly appointed junior minister for overseas aid, Peter Power, will know that target is achievable but that we have to do much more.

It is, and always has been, a real moral and practical challenge for countries enjoying great material comfort, especially in a hectoring world where we are told that so much of that which sustains us may soon no longer be as widely available as it is now.

In our heart of hearts we all know that we are a part of the problem and so must be a part of the solution. We also know that our responses are undermined by a sense of powerlessness but it doesn’t have to be like that.

Today we carry a range of proposals, and acting even on one of them will make a difference.