Russia and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) today signed an agreement on joint efforts to fight world hunger. WFP’s director, Ertharin Cousin, was in Moscow today to sign the agreement with foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
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Filed under global hunger
With 49 million people in America living with hunger, we need to find innovative ways to solve this crisis. Libraries and city government are coming up with some.
It’s called food for fines. Libraries are offering reductions in fines in exchange for canned goods, which are then donated to a food bank.
Jefferson County Library in Missouri has been offering amnesty the final Friday of each month this year. Patrons have gotten their fines erased and helped feed the hungry at the same time. A total of 6,543 canned goods have been collected for local pantries so far this year. They have one more amnesty day to go for 2014.
Other libraries have used this approach as well. In Cincinnati, Ohio they also have food for fines for parking tickets.
People with an outstanding parking ticket just need to bring 10 canned goods to city hall and get the $45 late fee waived. Then they just pay the original cost of the ticket. It’s not for people who have more than two tickets. In its first day the city has collected 300 canned goods for the Freestore Foodbank, the leading hunger relief agency in Cincinnati.
Thousands of meals are being donated because of these amnesty programs. It shows that a little goodwill can go a long way, and fight hunger in America.
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Filed under Hunger in America
What has caused tremendous hunger and suffering in the Sahel region of Africa? Drought. With drastic climate change taking place, droughts are creating food shortages in this region.
There is a crop that has tremendous resistance to drought. It is called fonio. It is a small, but very nutritious, cereal. This grain has been around so long, there are even stories of how the universe originated from it.
The charity International Relief and Development is trying to expand the growth and sale of fonio in Burkina Faso, one of the Sahel countries. IRD is using funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food for Progress program.
They are helping farmers grow more fonio, and assisting them to sell it on the market. With fonio a bigger part of the farming strategy, they will have a food supply that can grow even during times of drought. Fonio requires little water to grow.
IRD thinks fonio can be spread to many more countries to help them adapt to drought. The Feed the Future program, which the Senate still needs to vote on, also supports programs to help farmers grow fonio.
This is another reason why food and agriculture programs need support. The Food for Progress and Feed the Future initiatives can help small farmers grow fonio and other nutritious crops. Farmers can grow more resistance to drought. That is a major step to ending hunger and the threat of famine.
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Filed under Uncategorized
This fall, the U.S. ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), James C. Swan, redeclared a disaster in the African nation. Fighting continues to displace civilians and hunger is an extreme emergency.
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Filed under global hunger
A United Nations convoy, traveling through the war zone of the Eastern Ukraine, was about to bring relief to starving and cold hospital patients.
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Filed under global hunger
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing food in the Philippines after Typhoon Hagupit. Around 300,000 storm victims received high-energy biscuits today in 17 different towns in Eastern Samar.
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Filed under global hunger
Earlier this week at Huffington Post I wrote about the Feed the Future bill pending in the House. The legislation is officially titled the Global Food Security Act (H.R. 5656).
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Filed under global hunger
The coming new year may be another of horror in South Sudan. Aid agencies, including Oxfam and Catholic Relief Services (CRS), warn that famine could strike the country if a peace deal is not reached.
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Filed under global hunger
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says it only has about a third of the funds needed to provide aid in the Ukraine. Hunger has escalated as the war between the government and pro-Russian rebels has continued despite a ceasefire.
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Ando Island, a village in the Philippines, has been through two devastating storms in the last year. Typhoon Haiyan, one of the worst ever, struck last year. Just this week, Typhoon Hagupit (Ruby) brought more high winds and torrential rain.
On Tuesday, some help came their way. A boat arrived from the Department of Social Welfare and Development with relief supplies. There were 205 family food packs distributed.
Inside each one was rice, coffee/cereal drink, noodles, sardines and corned beef. And a bit of hope. Wilfredo Castillo, the Barangay Councilor of Ando Island said,
We are happy because we received relief goods. This is a great help to us here in the island.”
Typhoon Hagupit is finally gone from the Philippines. What’s left is reconstruction and uncertainty for those who suffered damage. Almost 50,000 homes were either destroyed or partially damaged by the storm. Fisherman and farmers have sustained damage to their livelihoods.
There is much work to be done in recovering. For now, the effort is on making sure emergency relief gets to storm victims.
Ando Island is part of the city of Borongan. The Philippines government says 12,891 food packs have been distributed to all 61 villages in the city.
Aid agencies will help storm-hit areas rebuild. Catholic Relief Services has set up a relief fund to aid storm victims.
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Filed under global hunger
Author William Lambers 