An inter-Mennonite newspaper, putting the Mennonite world together every week since 1923

EDITORIAL

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The world’s worst food crisis since the 1970s is pushing billions of people over the brink from poverty to hunger. As prices soar worldwide, generally the problem is not the absence of food but the inability to afford it.

Mennonite Central Committee recently reported a staggering figure: 4 billion people now are at risk of hunger as food prices rise beyond their reach. These billions are falling into the category of dire need that the world’s “bottom billion,” the very poorest, already occupied.

The price of rice has doubled in five weeks, the World Food Program reports. Global food prices have risen 40 percent in nine months and 80 percent in three years. Anger boiled over in recent weeks, with violent protests across the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, including 10 countries where MCC offers food programs.

The crisis has varied causes. Sharply higher fuel costs are driving up expenses for agriculture and transportation. Increased use of corn and other foods to distill biofuels is depleting grain supplies. Rising consumption of meat by the expanding middle class in China and India multiplies demand for grain to raise livestock. Millions of Chinese and Indians who used to grow their own food now buy it.

And weather is a factor: Crop losses due to droughts in Australia and Africa and flooding in Asia have caused many countries to cut their exports, creating scarcity on the global market.

North Americans, too, feel the pinch of inflation at the grocery store and the gas pump. But our complaints fade in comparison to the world’s poor. “We are getting to the worst period of our life,” said Samuel Ebwelle of the West African nation of Cameroon in an Associated Press report. “We’ve had to reduce the number of meals we take a day from three to two.” Many are worse off than that.

Steps toward long-term solutions might include reducing or ending subsidies for biofuels, leading farmers back to growing crops for food. More investment in farm infrastructure and technology, particularly in Africa, would boost crop yields.

On a personal level, some North Americans are choosing to eat more local, seasonal food, opting out of a distribution system in which the average item of food travels more than 1,000 miles. Some are eating less meat to avoid adding to the rising demand for grain that meat production creates.

To address the crisis on a larger scale, Mennonites can support the ministries of MCC, which runs emergency food-aid projects and works toward lasting solutions to hunger.

MCC’s projects with long-term benefits include helping communities become more self-sufficient by building sand dams in Kenya and Mozambique. MCC wrote on its Web site: “Water captured by the dam is more easily accessible to the community, which is then able to spend more time on agricultural activities and to increase production of fruits and vegetables.” It sounds like a solid investment in food security.

Mennonites have made alleviating hunger a priority for decades. Today’s global food-price surge calls for generous giving and some lifestyle changes of our own. — Paul Schrag