We Did It!!! Global Hunger Hits 1 Billion!
Posted by SurlyZ on October 14th, 2009
Take a moment to pat yourselves on your respective backs. It’s taken us since the beginning of time, but Earth finally has more than 1 billion hungry people — a world record! Take that, Mars! Shove it, Uranus! You ain’t got nothin’ on world hunger, ?uestlove!
In fact, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates the number at 1.02 billion. So we have a little insurance if some no-good do-gooder tries to throw a little grain out there to fuck up our numbers.
The perfect storm (not the crappy movie)
It appears that a perfect confluence of events allowed us to live this beautiful dream, including, among other things, a reduction in aid and investment in agriculture, high food prices, and Barack Osama Obama’s economic crisis that he somehow started long before he was elected president.
According to the AP’s paraphrasing of FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf:
Agriculture may look “less sexy” because of its slower growth rate, but it still needs sustained investment to feed people in developing countries.
I’m not sure what he means by “less sexy.” Hasn’t he heard the joke about the farmer’s daughter and the three holes in the barn?
Can’t we do better than that?
One billion is pretty good. I guess. But I believe we can do better. I believe we can double that. America trails way behind Asia, the Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa when it comes to hunger, so we owe it to the world to make great strides in starving out our own people by getting them to divert money away from food. For instance, if we water down health care reform and at the same time find a way to repackage old essentials into new money-sucking wastefulness, Americans will have flies crawling all over their distended bellies in no time.
Way to go, people. ... Dear god.
We should be so proud
Once again, congratulations to the world for breaking through the glass ceiling of suffering. And you can add one more hungry person to the grand total: I skipped lunch today.
Go here or here to find a way to help, if you are so inclined.
Tags: 1 billion, agriculture, economy, hunger, starvation, U.N.
I’m blaming the Nobel Prize people for this.
I find it interesting that this report came right after the article on the Texas State Fair and its many horrifing confections.