Text entirely copied from the 1billionhungry.org campaign website(United Nations FAO). Promote it, too!
For the more fortunate, it’s only the feeling in your stomach that says “it’s time to eat.” If you are less fortunate and don’t get enough to eat each day, hunger makes you feel weak, tired, unable to concentrate, even sick. All you can think about is when you are going to eat next. For hundreds of millions of people worldwide, this feeling lasts all day, every day, except they never know if and when this feeling will go away. For them, hunger can lead to illness and temporary or permanent damage to their health. They have insufficient food to keep them active and healthy, and they don’t get all the vitamins and minerals the body needs to function well. This is chronic hunger. When hunger is extreme and after days of insufficient or no food, the body begins to feed on the only thing it can: itself. It breaks down its own fat and body tissues, which eventually leads to starvation and death.
Lack of food is not the problem. Enough food is produced in the world today for everyone to be properly nourished and lead a healthy and productive life. Hunger exists because of poverty. It exists because natural disasters, like earthquakes, floods and droughts, sometimes occur in places where poor people have little or no means to rebuild once the damage is done. It exists because in many countries women, although they do much of the farming, do not have as much access as men to training, credit or land. Hunger exists because of conflict, which takes away any chance people have to earn a decent living and feed their families. It exists because poor people don’t have access to land or solid agricultural infrastructure to produce viable crops or keep livestock, or to steady work that would otherwise allow them access to food. It exists because people sometimes use natural resources in ways that are not sustainable. It exists because there is not enough investment in the rural sector in many countries to support agricultural development. Hunger exists because financial and economic crises affect the poor most of all by reducing or eliminating the sources of income they depend on to survive.
They are mostly the rural poor living in developing countries – like villages in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean – who are mostly dependent on raising animals or cultivating crops on small pieces of land for basic nutrition needs. Those without land can be even hungrier: widows, orphans, the elderly, casual labourers, refugees. These rural poor don’t have access to steady income, so they can’t supplement their nutrition needs by buying enough food. They often move to the city in search of work, which can be scarce and poorly paid. Little income means little means to buy food at local markets. Women are often most affected, and women who are undernourished during pregnancy are more likely to give birth to undernourished children. When catastrophes like floods, earthquakes and droughts hit vulnerable countries, the poor are forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods, creating even more victims of hunger.
Sharing a vision of a world without hunger is the first step. Ending gender inequality and empowering women to play a bigger role in agricultural development is another. The problem of hunger should be a top priority in impoverished countries. Small-scale farmers should be given the opportunities and education they need to produce enough food and income to feed their families. Rural economies need to grow to expand job opportunities for those who need them and slow the pace of rural-to-urban migration. More emphasis needs to be placed on improving small farmers’ access to both domestic and international markets. Our natural resources need to be properly managed to ensure the land is not being over-used. The public and private sectors need to work together to end poverty and inequality and improve access to safe food for all.
Deadly cattle plague, once the bane of farmers, on its deathbed.
Sometime soon, rinderpest will officially be declared extinct, marking the first time mankind has ever eradicated an animal disease. ?Rinderpest does not affect humans directly but it is lethal to the cattle and hoofed animals upon which they depend for food, income, and draught power. Death rates during outbreaks can approach 100 percent. Caused by a virus and spread by contact and contaminated materials, rinderpest has destroyed countless millions of cattle, buffalo, yaks and their wild relatives, causing staggering economic losses and contributing to famine and social unrest for thousands of years. […]
Countries buck hunger trend with right policies
Rising global hunger figures mask the fact that 31 out of 79 countries monitored by FAO have registered a significant decline in the number of undernourished people since the early nineties. A report entitled Pathways to Success highlights the progress made by 16 of these countries that have already achieved the target of halving the number of hungry by 2015 or are on track to do so. […]
Rice farming revival in Western Kenya
In recent years, Kenya has faced civil unrest, drought and high food, fuel and input prices. With levels of food insecurity increasing, FAO’s Initiative on Soaring Food Prices (ISFP) has been providing support for the most vulnerable people. The renovation of an irrigation scheme is bringing remarkable results and has transformed life for the rice farmers of Ahero. […]
