I am looking for information, insight and information on world hunger. Almost one billion people suffer from hunger while agriculturally we produce enough food for DOUBLE our population. I know part of it is warlords cutting off supplies and I know up to half of these monies are used to get it to point B: transportation costs. The UN spends $3-4 billion a year on this but they're reaching a fraction of the world's hungry. Private organizations spend about a billion more with not much more success. And in all honesty, we should all be ashamed that hunger exists in the world- overall as a people. How about a UN Resolution to end world hunger. And all nations kick in millions and billions to fund it and this slush fund buys foodstuffs by the container-ship load. And the UN administrates it- they deliver it to point B and distribute it freely. 200+ nations... we could easily have a pot of $10 billion. Then an army of UN forces deployed all over the world to deliver food. HOW DO WE SOLVE WORLD HUNGER?
The USA and other wealthy countries send mountains of food to the Third World. The problem is at the other end. Their despotic leaders intercept the shipments, sell the food on the black market, and use the money to buy weapons to fight wars against other despotic leaders, as well limousines, champagne and hookers. The U.N. has hardly established a track record for being able to solve the Third World's problems by military force. They can't even intervene effectively in regional wars, which is kind of what you'd expect soldiers to be good at. How are they possibly going to use force to rebuild the social infrastructure in HUGE failed states to rehabilitate their food production and distribution systems? We can start by taking off our blinders and acknowledging progress when it happens--and it is happening right under our noses. Here's a passage from an article in last Wednesday's Washington Post: The Third World has been rising out of poverty faster than anyone ever dreamed possible, and nobody even notices. I'm really sorry that this isn't a problem that can be fixed overnight, but it can be fixed and we're doing it.
Global Issues does a wonderful job on both peer review and objective information: http://www.globalissues.org/issue/6/world-hunger-and-poverty If you contact Anup he will direct you to more resources
geezus, there are people that just don't deserve to exist they are so evil. actually more than double. i read a statistic once that showed that america alone produced enough food to feed the entire world five times over. it shows that the earth can sustain, it's just fucked up mismanagement and greed (bad politics) that causes the problems. ironic
Two words: Soylent Green. Tagline for the new ad campaign: It's made of less people than you think! Or maybe just not buy military crap for a few minutes each day.
That isn't really an option because otherwise the terrorists will eat our babies. Why don't we solve two problems at the same time, and eat the poor.
Going back on a serious note... The problem IS real but the solution is almost impossible. That's because - and Fraggle nailed it well - the REAL problem is one of POLITICS and personal greed. And you cannot correct those with a carrot, stick, embargo, military force or anything else. The fix has to come from the people themselves - just as it appears to be in Egypt at this moment. The first step HAS to be replacing a government that is corrupt from the top to the very bottom. Nothing else - I repeat - NOTHING else is going to have much effect.
Seconded, extremely strongly. Next question: how to run a bloodless revolution and prevent the assholes from getting in. I think we need a new dialectic, or a revitalization of the old one.
With The right amount (not yet calculated to precision) we could Terra-form and cultivate most of the land. Supply and provide Hydro systems and reseviours for the entire world. But you wont get anywhere the governments will never help the needy only the common man wants to do that. Peace.
As stated, get rid of bad government and replace it with good. The old business about the world already producing enough food remains totally irrelevent. 100 tonnes of excess corn in the USA plus 1000 hungry Africans does not equal a solution. Excess food has to be paid for, processed, and transported. For impoverished people, this is not possible. The only solution is to grow the food at site. So Africans need to grow the corn they, themselves, need to eat. Most of this can be accomplished by honest government plus a little help from the west. Potential for agricultural production is ample to produce more than enough food for all the people that are ever likely to live at one time on Planet Earth.
You'd have to double the reservoir system though, to keep the dirty kaffir from contaminating it with their breathing. That would raise your overheads a little.
We need to start with replacing our own governments first. And remove the new aristocracy: Bank CEOs, career politicians, high level civil servants, administrators etc.
People could still just get food from the wild. We may not be hunters and gatherers anymore, but many things that were ever hunted and gathered are still out there neglected behind property markers. All kind of roots and fungi and meat and veggies and herbs that have been put out of the mind of civilized humans.