FAO Calls on the Public to Fight Hunger with a Hunger Strike

The World Food Summit, which begins on Monday in Rome, is expected to provide a new impetus in the fight against hunger affecting over a billion people, but due to the absence of G8 leaders, it is unlikely to achieve the desired success.

Pope Benedict XVI and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will deliver key speeches at the summit, which will conclude on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). More than 60 heads of state and government will participate in the meeting, which aims to agree on an increase in agricultural investment and international measures to combat hunger and malnutrition, as well as to adopt a Declaration, FAO states on its website. FAO has launched an online campaign at www.1billionhungry.org and called on the public to sign a petition for the eradication of hunger and to “fight hunger with a hunger strike” on Saturday, November 14, and Sunday, November 15, in solidarity with those who have nothing to eat.

FAO Director Jacques Diouf began a 24-hour hunger strike on Friday evening, writes the UN agency, which will also hold separate discussions at the summit on how to reduce the impact of the recession on food security, on climate change as a threat to agriculture, and on measures to strengthen rural development and the prosperity of small farmers. In advance texts, world news agencies warn of the absence of almost all G8 leaders (the group of the world’s most industrially developed countries), with the exception of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. “In the fight against hunger, we can win” by increasing food production by 70 percent to feed more than 9 billion people expected by 2050, quotes the French agency AFP Diouf, who believes that this “is not a utopia” as some countries have succeeded.

This is disputed by non-governmental organizations that warn that the meeting will be a mere “waste of money and time” and remind that G8 leaders promised to invest $20 billion in agriculture over three years. However, as much as $44 billion should be invested in agriculture every year, instead of the current $8 billion, AFP reports. In a special report on countries that have eradicated hunger and those that have failed this test, Reuters writes that Brazil is a winner in the fight against hunger as it has reduced child malnutrition by 73 percent and implemented the redistribution of arable land along with incentives for small farmers.

China has reduced the number of hungry people by one-third by financing poor farmers and rural infrastructure. Although it has 9 percent of arable land, China feeds 1.3 billion of its inhabitants, of whom less than 9 percent are hungry. Ghana is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that has met the Millennium Goal of halving the number of hungry people by 2015. By helping small farmers, it has reduced the number of hungry from 5.4 million in 1990 to 1.9 million in 2005. Malawi has doubled food production in three years and reduced the number of hungry from 45 to 29 percent from 2004 to 2006, and has also become the first African exporter of maize. Although India is one of the leading emerging economies, 30 million of its inhabitants are hungry, and due to the current drought, 46 percent of its children are underweight. Ethiopia is a chronically malnourished country in Africa with 7.5 million hungry people due to failed agrarian reform, but the situation is worst in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 76 percent of people are chronically hungry due to wars, unrest, and violence.

In a separate text on the causes of hunger, Reuters, based on UN data, writes that the number of hungry people increased by 100 million in 2009 due to the financial crisis and rising food prices, due to declining investment in agriculture and global warming, which brings a decline in productivity. Globalization is a major cause of hunger as it hardest hits poor nations that are forced to cut aid to small farmers and open their markets to cheap imported goods. (H)