WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (OneWorld.net) - More people are going hungry today than ever before in human history, and the numbers continue to rise. Establishing a global system of food reserves could help stifle the forces spreading hunger and begin to reverse the trend, humanitarian groups told government officials gathered at a World Food Summit this week.

The coalition of food and hunger groups is disappointed that little has happened since representatives of the world's eight most industrialized nations -- the G8 -- agreed to study the idea at a meeting in July.

The groups are concerned that economic priorities continue to drive international food and agriculture policies while over 100 million more people have been pushed into hunger over the past two years. They believe the human right to food should take precedence, and governments should be given tools to combat the forces of supply and demand when those forces result in severe malnutrition and starvation for poorer people.

"Food reserves are an important tool for governments trying to address hunger and stabilize markets for their farmers," said Alexandra Spieldoch of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), one of the groups that authored the letter to world leaders. "We cannot allow food reserves to drop off the radar at the World Food Summit."

Staple food prices spiked worldwide in 2007 and 2008, largely as a result of rising fuel costs, erratic weather patterns that destroyed harvests, and the conversion of farmland to grow crops for biofuels. The poorest people worldwide faced the most severe consequences, while wealthier communities tended to suffer less.

With energy prices still unpredictable and climate change threatening to wreak havoc on future harvests, the potential for future food emergencies remains high.

Today, millions of families in Kenya, Somalia, and other East African countries are struggling mightily to feed themselves after three bad years of harvests caused by the worst drought the region has seen in decades. Hunger also ravaged parts of Yemen and Nepal this year, and even the United States has seen an alarming rise in its number of hungry families.

IATP and its allies believe that establishing key food stockpiles at the local, regional, or global levels would give governments in Africa and other developing countries more power over the food supply chain, allowing them to ensure consistent minimum prices -- and thus a livable income -- for their farmers as well as access to food for all their citizens during lean times and unexpected emergencies. [» Read more from IATP on the potential of food reserves and their hopes for the summit.]

Nearly 1 in 6 U.S. Citizens Went Hungry in 2008

Hunger now affects one-sixth of all people worldwide, and it is no less a problem in the United States.

As the World Food Summit got underway in Rome yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture disclosed that hunger levels reached their highest levels in this country since the agency began monitoring food security in 1995.

Some 49 million people "had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year," the agency said. [» Read the full report from the Inter Press Service.] 

Food Summit Promises Fail to Impress

For the first time ever, more than 1 billion people now suffer from hunger, according to the United Nations. Humanitarian groups hope passing this ignominious milestone will create a new sense of urgency among world leaders to address the problem for the world's poorest.

Pledges made in 2000, to halve hunger worldwide by 2015, are clearly off track and unlikely to be met without a concerted change of approach and renewed commitment from world leaders.

"The silent hunger crisis -- affecting one sixth of all of humanity -- poses a serious risk for world peace and security," said Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), earlier this year. "We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

The FAO organized this week's food summit to help spur on those actions.

On the summit's first day, however, a declaration was passed that largely disappointed groups working to end hunger worldwide.

An Inter Press Service (IPS) report from the conference notes that the FAO had called for governments to commit to provide $44 billion in aid for agriculture each year, "primarily to enable smallholder farmers in developing countries to feed themselves as well as helping the world achieve the goal of increasing food production by 70 percent to meet the needs of a population likely to reach 9.1 billion by 2050."

The money would be used to increase farmers' access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as improving rural infrastructure and roads so they can obtain the inputs they need and take their goods to market, notes IPS.

Humanitarian groups were also disappointed that the summiteers refused to set a goal of eradicating hunger worldwide by 2025. [» Read the full IPS report on the summit.] 

Take Action

For the latest news on the global food crisis and information about what groups are doing to ease hunger worldwide -- and how you can lend a hand -- see OneWorld.net's global food crisis alert.

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