In 1974, the year I was born, the world saw a food crisis of epoch proportions instituting the first ever World Food Conference sponsored by the UN. Thirty-four years later at least thirty-seven nations are now in a major food crisis. Some nations are hitting the panic button as they stop exporting rice and wheat and other staples while the UN and the World Bank wave their hands warning the bans only make the problem worse. Everyone looks for a scapegoat, someone or something to blame. China and India are eating better, one article stated. Free trade-- that's the problem! Bio-fuel, the cause of food prices soaring. Western capitalism is to blame. American agriculture is the culprit, another article read. Meanwhile, the peoples of Mauritania and Indonesia and Haiti and Cameroon are starving. The UN has called a meeting in Bern to address an immediate plan of action as well as the cause. The World Bank has doubled its lending to Africa (where a majority of the nations in crisis are) for agriculture to $800 million, both aiding Africa's problem while possibly creating even more problems down the road (debt debt debt on top of more debt).
A couple of months ago I went to Texas French Bread company to eat a lovely lunch of half a pimento cheese sandwich and a mocha walnut cookie. There was a sign at the register warning patrons that prices were rising due to wheat prices rising. And now, I learn that this staple, this grainy goodness, this symbol of wealth and health, prosperity and fertility, is poison to my body. As wheat is in high demand, its prices soar and there is a world shortage, I can't have my cake and eat it too. My daily bread? Potatoes, rice flour, quinoa.
I do feel a bit Marie Antoinette-ish as I enjoy my rice flour chocolate chip cookie and my corn tortilla breakfast taco. hundreds of millions of the world's poor are starving. I read several articles today to get the big picture of what is going on, and one person had the audacity to say that we ignore the problem and let it take care of itself. Let the poor die so we don't have to feed them down the road. Natural Evolution, he called it. Survival of the fittest, right? The wonderful shock and awe of the Beatitudes would say differently. It's the meek that inherit the earth. As a careless, irresponsible consumer who lives in a wealthy, capitalist, wasteful nation I must ask what I can do, what I can change as I leave my thumbprint not only on my country but on the planet as my decisions and patterns cause a waterfall effect on the global economy.
The World Food Programme
The ONE Campaign
World Vision
Mercy Corps
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