THE TASK of ensuring that everyone on Earth has enough to eat, and that the planet will continue to be able to feed its growing number of people is perhaps the most important task for all of inhabitants of the planet. So far, humanity has both succeeded and failed at this task. The good news is that despite predictions that population growth would outstrip food supplies, the world has continued to produce enough to feed its inhabitants. On the other hand, there are still a lot of hungry people because the Earth’s bounty is not distributed fairly.

Food in crisis

Every day, 18,000 children under the age of five die from hunger or hunger related diseases.
This toll is getting worse as the present world food crisis takes hold. It is driven not by food scarcity as a result of poor harvests, but because of growing demands from the relatively prosperous. This situation has to be urgently addressed and feeding the hungry must be the absolute priority. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to provide support to the world’s hundreds of millions of poor farmers who are themselves often short of food, and who can be outstandingly productive in the amount of food they harvest from each hectare of land.

More food will have to be produced as human numbers increase but this must not be done at the expense of the Earth’s ability to feed future generations. Failure to observe this simple principle of sustainability has already made our task much harder. Overfishing has exhausted most of the world’s fisheries, overgrazing is one of the main causes of increasing desertification, and
Over-cultivation has degraded soils worldwide.

Even though harvests have generally been quite good, rising demand has meant that the world
has not produced as much as it has consumed for seven of the last eight years. We have gotten by through eating our reserves, with the result that the world’s food stocks – our insurance
against famine – are now lower than they have ever been. This, aided by market speculation, has driven prices even higher.

In addition, harvesting of forests is disrupting rainfall and water supplies and contributing to climate change which, in turn, poses an ever growing threat to food supplies. Reversing these trends is not an easy task but it can be considered one of the major one.

Food prices have shot up while grain reserves have plunged to record lows and people who were already hungry have even less to eat. The World Food Programme – which coined the ‘silent tsunami’ phrase – calls this ‘the new face of hunger’. Its Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, explains: ‘There is food on the shelves, but people are priced out of the market.’ She goes on: ‘This crisis threatens not only the hungry, but also peace and stability.’

While previous crises have been caused primarily by reductions in the supply of food, this one has resulted from growth in demand. In part, this is fuelled by the world’s success in achieving widespread economic growth, which has caused a rapid increase in demand for meat.
Most people like to eat meat when they can afford to do so, but soaring meat-eating mops up world food supplies because livestock consumes a large quantity of grain: it takes 8 or 9 kilos of
grain, for example, to produce just 1 kilo of beef.

The World’s real heroes

The world’s least-sung hero is the small farmer of the developing world. Farmers are often ignored by policy makers, but are the single most important ingredient in any recipe to tackle hunger.

Though among the poorest people on the planet, small farmers are up to 20 times more productive than big, rich farmers since they get much more food out of each hectare of ground. This is partly due to the fact that they have no alternative if they are to survive. Given better seed, fertilizer and other support, however, small farmers could be even more productive.

Here are some easy but GREAT things you can do to make a difference, and help the food crisis the world faces:

•    Compost vegetable waste. There are many ways of doing this from a simple pit dug in the backyard to household worm composting bins (vermin-composters). Unlike landfill, composting releases no methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
•    Use the compost to grow vegetables and fruit. Compost improves the soil, strengthens roots, speeds plant growth and makes produce more nutritious.
•    Use crockery and cutlery instead of Styrofoam containers.
•    Learning a basic skill – how to sew, knit, garden, fish, build furniture are all absorbing ways to increase your sustainable lifestyle.
•    Baking bread. As basic skills go, there is nothing more satisfying! Soda bread is easy to start with. Mix 450 grams flour, a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, and a teaspoon of salt. Add 200-300 millilitres of buttermilk, or milk soured with lemon juice, or yogurt. Knead the dough. It should be soft but not sticky. Split into two mounds, cut a cross on top, and bake on parchment paper at 200ºC for an hour.
•    Grow the food you need including chicken.

Read more at: http://www.unep.org/pdf/tunza/Tunza_6.2_EN.pdf

You can share ideas and questions by sending your letters to: ‘Our Earth, Our Environment’, C/o EIT Division, Environmental Protection Agency, Ganges Street, Sophia, GEORGETOWN, or email eit.epaguyana@gmail.com