The Changing Face of World Hunger

LONDON, April 22, 2008 — -- The silent tsunami of hunger now affecting millions may be the toughest hurdle in the 45-year history of the World Food Program, its executive director told a room full of journalists today.

"The world misery index is rising," Josette Sheeran said.

"We are seeing a new face of hunger -- up to 100 million people, many in urban areas, are now on the list of hungry nations, many of these people are being priced out of the food markets."

Biofuels and European Union-friendly policies toward their production have also resulted in less available land for producing food because more and more fields are being used to grow crops meant for alternative fuels.

Biofuel production is a profitable business, but not everyone is happy about its effects on already-dwindling food supplies.

Many Latin American leaders, including Bolivia's left-wing President Evo Morales, have been highly critical of this practice.

Talking to reporters Monday at a United Nations forum on the effects of climate change on indigenous people, Morales said that some South American presidents "did not fully understand what they were talking about" when it comes to biofuel production.

Biofuels Versus Food

The fast-paced growth of developing economies such as India's and China's has been driving the demand for biofuels and underpinning the spike in food prices, which, Sheeran said, is not necessarily a bad thing.

"Part of this is good news," she told ABC News. "The kind of development that we've seen in India and China and frankly in more than 10 African nations that have had growth rates of more than 10 percent is driving increased demand for better food, and this is natural and it's good news."

The challenge, Sheeran said, is for the World Food Program and other aid organizations to step up the supply to meet these demands and ensure that affordable food reaches the most vulnerable in the world.

Many farmers like those in the Great Rift Valley, which extends from Asia to Africa, have simply stopped planting crops because of the rising cost of resources. Fertilizer, which is oil-based, has increased so much in price that farmers can no longer afford the materials that are vital to harvesting food, which is having a devastating effect on the chain of agriculture.

"Poor farmers are hit not only with the cost of food but also they can't even buy the fertilizer or the seeds to grow the food for their families for the next season," Sheeran told ABC News.

Putting Hunger 'Out of Business'

Sheeran and other representatives from the World Food Program will be meeting with British officials and other bilateral organizations this afternoon to discuss short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions to rising food prices.

In the short-term, the World Food Program plans to introduce micronutrients into food rations as well as address the issue of fertilizers and other resources to encourage farmers to plant more.

In the medium term, they are focusing on countries where the poor live on less than 50 cents a day. They also plan to provide more incentives for families to expand their rations, such as awarding additional rations for families whose daughters have perfect school attendance records.

In the long-term, the World Food Program will call on countries to dedicate up to 10 percent of their budgets toward cutting hunger domestically, to "break the cycle of hunger at its root."

"Today's meeting is critical," Sheeran told ABC News, "because our message is that this is a wake-up call for the world to get serious about putting hunger out of business."

Sheeran said the crisis requires an emergency response as well as a greater focus on agriculture and the poor farmer who lacks the kind of resources and technology that enable many farmers in developed countries to produce more food.

"We need a coherent response from everyone involved," she said, "and the prime minister [Gordon Brown] has called together people from throughout the value chain of food production to talk about how we bring about that response."

Hunger and Security

Global security and developing countries' vulnerability to violence and home-grown terrorism has also been a growing issue.

"It has been said that a hungry man is an angry man," Sheeran told ABC News.

"And it is true that people, when they are desperate, they really take to the streets to call for action. So we want to be able to respond with the kind of emergency help that can alleviate some of this pressure."

A number of African nations are reeling from other challenges such as floods in West Africa, droughts in southern Africa, conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Sudan. In Darfur alone, more than 3 million people a day depend on the World Food Program and its activities.

But the humanitarian organization's resources are being stretched thinner and thinner.

"Today we can fill a ration cup 40 percent less than we could just six or eight months ago, just due to the high food prices," Sheeran said.

"So we are making an urgent call to really keep this cup full but also for the world to pull together for the long-term responses that can put an end to hunger everywhere."

The private sector, however, should not be ignored, Sheeran said.

"It is also critical that we bring the private sector into solutions and dialogue, since many of the food stockpiles are privately owned," she said.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom are being solicited to step up their roles in tackling the global food crisis. The United States already provides 50 percent of all food supplies to needy countries; Congress is now considering additional supplements. Great Britain has also announced additional help.

Dwindling Stockpiles

In terms of food shortages, Sheeran told reporters that consumption has outpaced supply and stocks for more than 3 years now. The stress of floods has increased desperation and vulnerability as well as led to delayed harvests.

A strain on food supplies for the next couple of years is inevitable, Sheeran said.

The key, she added, is resiliency and how fast the prices are rising.

"For the past few years we have been able to adjust or cope as many nations have been able to," she said. "But last June the prices started going into an aggressive pattern of increases."

The price of rice alone has gone from $460 per metric ton in early March to $780 per metric ton by the end of March to $1,000 per metric ton today. These kinds of increases have made it impossible for the World Food Program, not mention developing countries, to cope.

As a result, the organization has been forced to curtail several of its own programs.

In Kenya, the organization has been forced to cut up to 40 percent of its funding. In Cambodia, it is planning to suspend a school-feeding program for 450,000 children by May, and finally in Tajikistan, the World Food Program will be cutting all its programs by half.

"But I am a long-term optimist," Sheehan told ABC News.

"Because the world knows how to grow enough food to feed itself; we know how to solve the hunger crisis. We don't need any new discoveries in science or technology. We just need the political will to pull together as a global community to make sure the supply side gets up and the needs of the most vulnerable are met until we get that job done."