One child dies of hunger every four seconds, every five seconds, a child dies from malnutrition-related diseases! While a restless climate, drought and famine rage devastation, global food prices have surged to an unprecedented high, threatening the efforts of ‘The World Food Programme,’ the last recourse to feed millions dying of hunger in Africa.

Mud pies, tree barks, and leaves are part of the menu of the starved. As their stomach gnaws for food, they are even forced to try poisonous plants risking paralysis and even death. Hunger, humanities oldest enemy is getting ready to strike an ever-deadlier blow. The weapons of global warming, climate change, human conflict and population explosion are there to fuel it now.

The United Nations organization feeds some 90m people annually. About half of the donations the WFP receives are now made in cash, the rest in commodities. It now receives cash from many countries, and often, as is the case with the US, must spend that money on products grown in the donor country. So far, the WFP has not cut its reach because of high commodities prices, but now says it could be forced to do so unless donor countries provide extra funds.

The world is producing food in abundance; even enough to feed the entire global population of 6.4 billion people, why then are there so many hungry people? Natural disasters and war aside, poverty, agricultural malpractices, and overexploitation of the environment have added to this crisis. Over farming has already destroyed over 15 percent of the earth’s fertile farmland.

An unprecedented surge in global demand is behind the rise in food prices. The demand, triggered in part by the increasing use of agricultural commodities to make ethanol and other substitutes for crude oil, may keep prices high for years.

Add to this, the predicted growth in the world population from the current six billion to nine billion by 2050, plus growing consumer affluence in China and India, could double global grain consumption within the next 40 years.

Biofuels... ?

Biofuels the world over seem to reinforce the idea of being environmentally friendly. This has resulted in a a culture of fuel producing crops that will take away huge amounts of land from food-producing agro business and lead to increasing mass starvation on the planet.

Agriculture for exports and not the local populace

In an agricultural trend the world over, subsistence farms have given way to large farms, where high-priced export crops rather than diverse crops for local populations are grown. Global corporations favor luxury high-profit items like flowers, sugarcane, beef, shrimp, cotton, coffee, and soybeans for export to wealthy countries. Local people are often left with nothing. In Africa, where severe famines have occurred in the past decade, industrialized agriculture has not produced foods for the people, but rather record crops of cotton and sugarcane. As export crops and livestock use up available land, small farmers are forced to use marginal, less fertile lands.

The harsh reality is that most of us are so taken in by the consumerist culture that poverty remains a disease far from our minds. No one can realize the misery of the lives of those who remain chronically hungry, unless they live it. Already over half a billion people on the planet are starving, is it really the moment to convert huge arable lands from food production to ethanol-producing corn, sugar cane, soy beans and wheat? Are our fuel needs to surpass those of food then?

Image credit: [1], [2]