Ending Hunger – Now! An Appeal to fight the Global Food Crisis

Ten Point Plan: Demands of the Welthungerhilfe to overcome the global food crisis

Children eating mashed millet in Burkina Faso.
© von LingenThe food crisis does not come as a surprise, and it is not coming in silence either. Starving people in Haiti, Burkina Faso, Cameroon or Egypt are vociferously calling attention to their situation with violent riots. They have been the victims of suppression over many decades, of price-dumping by industrialised nations, of neglected agricultural production, and of crop failures due to climate change. They know they have a right to adequate nutrition.

wheat crop. © DWHHPrice rising by more than 60 percent

Worldwide the price of food has been rising rapidly in the past months. Since August 2007 the world market prices for wheat and rice have stepped up by more than 60 percent. In the past week the crisis has culminated: in Bangkok the price for one ton of rice boomed from 460 USD in March 2008 to 780 USD in April. The prices for meat, palm oil or manioc have also increased. In industrialised countries the crisis can be felt through higher prices for bread and other cereal products. In developing countries the impact is more serious, especially for small farmers and the landless, and increasingly for the poor in the cities.

Protests against rinsing food
prices in Haiti. © ReutersProtests call for attention to the global food crisis

Worldwide 980 million people are destitute (UNDP 2007), twice the number of people living in the EU. In the face of dramatic price spikes for staple food, people in numerous developing countries have protested and called for international attention to the global food crisis. The permanent structural hunger in developing countries mostly caused by wrong policies now moves back into the focus of awareness. 854 million people already suffered from hunger worldwide while food prices were still low.

Hunger results from structural causes

The international community and the governments of developing countries have to take action. Food aid only alleviates symptoms but does not eliminate the structural causes of hunger. Agricultural potentials in the developing countries – including Africa - are far from being fully exploited. The individual consumer has also possibilities to make a contribution to a better income and thus more food security for the poor in the developing countries.

Agricultural potential must
be expanded. © LyonsIncreasing food prices - a chance for the farmers?

The increased food prices have different impacts: while consumers suffer from the highprices, farmers get the opportunity to make a better income. Agriculture becomes more profitable, it pays off to invest in farming. Small farmers in developing countries, however, are dependent on buying additional foodstuff most of the time because of low crop yield and their unstable situation. In the short term, they are suffering from the high food prices just as much as the consumers in the cities. In the long run higher food prices provide a chance for attaining a better income. However, this requires a policy on the national as well as the international level that puts farming and food security into its main focus, thereby facing up to the responsibility of securing the human right to food.