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TWIN TSUNAMIS? The World Food Program described the global food crisis as a “silent tsunami” surging over an unaware populace, helpless in the face of massive destruction. The financial crisis—rapidly going global—now threatens to increase everyone’s vulnerability to hunger. The compound effect of the twin crises seems overwhelming. read...

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“A Silent Tsunami” The World Food Program’s description of the global food crisis raises the specter of a natural disaster surging over an unaware populace that is helpless in the face of massive destruction. With billions of people at risk of hunger, the current food crisis is certainly massive and destructive. read...

By Annie Shattuck and Amanda El-Khoury Institute for Food and Development Policy read...

Compilation of articles from Americas Policy Program including an article titled Agri-food Industry's Deadly Cycle Feeds Immigration by Eric Holt-Gimenez Inequalities in the world's food system have been aggravated by recent developments to create the much talked-about food crisis. But what is behind the headlines? This new series delves into agrofuels, trade policy, corporate concentration, climate change, and rising demand to help sort out the real causes of the crisis and what needs to be done about it. To read these articles go to:......

At the June 1-4, 2008 FAO Food Security Summit in Rome, representatives of 181 countries reaffirmed their commitment to food security goals from previous summits held in 1996 and "Five Years Later." Delegates voiced concern about the lack of progress toward the UN Millennium Development Goals. That's the good news. Read more in the......

Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 10:00 a.m., 2128 Rayburn House Office Building To listen to the webcast go to: www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/hr051408.shtml Leading Experts to Testify Before House Financial Services Committee on Global Food Crisis read...

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Nizar Visram Nairobi originally published in The East African According to the World Food Programme 25,000 people die from hunger and poverty every day in Africa. read...

By Mulugeta L Handino, Field Researcher and Development Expert with Food First read...

Black Star News by Sifelani Tsiko December 14, 2007 Industrialized countries are drawing up ambitious renewable fuel targets to reap huge rewards from the bio-fuels boom while avoiding discussion of the heavy price people in the Global South are paying to help sustain the consumptive oil-based lifestyles of the West. Agronomists, ecologists, environmentalists and development activists who met recently in Mali called on African governments to resist pressure from the Industrialized North to grow food crops for the production of biodiesel. read...

by Miguel A. Altieri, University of California, Berkeley Food prices are increasing by the day, countries are cutting trade in some basic grains, and food riots, marches, and protests are happening in countries around the world. Is agriculture at a crossroads? Are the world’s 1.5 billion hectares of farmlands sufficient to feed us, the animals we consume… and also produce agrofuels for our industrial way of life? Recently adopted U.S. and the E.U. renewable energy standards are contributed to rapidly rising prices for both land and food. Concerns about read...

The cause of the Asian Financial Crisis was a misplaced faith in continual economic expansion of the industrialized Asian economies supported by a global network of investors, journalists, investment analyst, and academics. read...

Here at home, just as in the Third World, hunger is an outrage precisely because it is profoundly needless. Behind the headlines, the television images, and superficial clichés, we can learn to see that hunger is real; scarcity is not. read...

On August 22, 1996 in the Rose Garden of the White House, President Clinton signed into law the Orwellian-sounding Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, better known as Welfare Reform, the most sweeping change in our welfare system in sixty years. With his signature, Clinton's talk of "not punishing or preaching" became indistinguishable from the Republican Party's poor-bashing Contract with America. How Mr. Clinton slid from a welfare plan that would have added about $10 billion more in spending to embracing one that would cut $54 billion is a sad tale of American politics. Furthermore, it raises the specter of systematic violations of basic human rights here in the United States of America, if we are judged by the international standards of the Universal...

The media attention being lavished on India's high technology sector paints a distorted picture. In a new report, we uncover disturbing evidence that the rural poor are increasingly marginalized, neglected and hungry -- despite the Indian government's claim that theirs is a "Shining India." read...

Disturbing evidence has come to light which suggests that US taxpayer dollars are being used through foreign assistance programs to subsidize the export of genetically engineered (GE) foods to the Third World and to finance GE research. This raises very serious ethical questions about our foreign aid dollars. read...

In a groundbreaking agreement, Taco Bell, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, has accepted the Coalition of Immokalee Worker's (CIW) demands for a penny a pound increase in the price they pay for tomatoes. Taco Bell further pledged to work with the CIW to improve wages and working conditions for farm workers in the Florida tomato industry. With this new agreement, the CIW is ending its "Boycott the Bell" campaign. "This is an important victory for farmworkers, one that establishes a new standard of social responsibility for the fast-food industry and makes an immediate material change in the lives of workers. This sends a clear challenge to other industry leaders," said Lucas Benitez, a leader of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. read...

The food shortage in North Korea that evolved into a famine in the mid-1990s and persists today was the outcome of multiple factors, including agricultural policy, weather, politics, and economics. As many as 10 percent of the population perished in the famine, and as the food crisis continues, over six million North Koreans continue to face hunger today. A new report published by Food First, "Famine and the Future of Food Security in North Korea," examines how North Korea pursued economic and agricultural self-sufficiency in response to its history of occupation and isolation. read...

Food First staff and board extend the survivors of Hurricane Katrina our deepest sympathies. We can only imagine the pain and suffering Gulf Coast residents are facing. As you rebuild your homes and communities, please know that you have the support of all of us at Food First. Many lives have been devastated by this natural disaster. Food First will continue to explore the devastation of the man-made disaster that made the hurricane worse: Poverty. read...

Updated by Holly Poole-Kavana based on the book World Hunger: Twelve Myths Why so much hunger? What can we do about it? To answer these questions we must unlearn much of what we have been taught. Only by freeing ourselves from the grip of ­widely held myths can we grasp the roots of hunger and see what we can do to end it. read...

The united organizations of the National Union of Autonomous Regional Campesino Organizations (UNORCA), collaborating at the national summit, “Corn, Tortillas and Food Sovereignty” on January 26th in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico declare that: We oppose the rise in prices resulting from the speculative and monopolistic practices of the big commercial businesses that control the Mexican corn market. We demand that the government implement a policy that encourages domestic production, as well as adequately regulate both supply and prices of staple crops and staple foods. read...

World Food Day theme seeks renewed commitment to the Right to Food 16 October 2007 - FAO today called for a renewed commitment to guarantee the right to food for the world's hundreds of millions of hungry people. Speaking at the World Food Day ceremony on this year’s theme, "The Right to Food," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf asked: “if our planet produces enough food to feed its entire population, why do 854 million people still go to sleep on an empty stomach?” At the same time, Diouf said that “a right is not a right if it cannot be claimed.” The President of Germany, Horst Köhler, said that “hunger is not an inescapable destiny, but can be eliminated by wise policies.” This requires that governments of developing countries make food security a priority. He said...

I am saddened, shocked and dismayed at humanity's continued climate change denial [search]. How sure of cataclysmic climate change impacts must we be before we fundamentally change our way of being individually and socially? The UN reports that the world suffered an unprecedented string of extreme weather events in early 2007, the Goracle falsely suggests carbon emissions in China can be cut without economic sacrifice, and the poor are to bear even more hunger due to climate change. This is just today's news! How will ecological and social collapse be averted? What sort of actions are necessary and warranted? Who will lead?...