One in eight of the world's people goes hungry every day – that is 868 million people. This article features families from around the world with their weekly food supplies. Oxfam, the Food For All campaign, says there is deep injustice in the way food is grown and distributed. The people range from Akavumu, Rwanda, where the Nyirazina family grows sweet potatoes, beans, sorghum grains and cassava shrubs to survive, and Vavuniya, Sri Lanka, where the Kumarapar family prepares meals of vegetables, rice and chicken, to Tower Hamlets in east London, where the Kerrs receive non-perishable items by their local food bank.
The world's poorest people spend 50-90 per cent of their income on food, compared with just 10-15 per cent in developed countries. The World Bank estimates that 44 million people fell below the poverty line in the second half of 2010 due to high food prices.
This campaign was launched because figures were published that up to half the world's food was being wasted. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers report Waste Not, Want Not, while about four billion metric tons of food is produced globally each year, 30-50 per cent of it "never reaches a human stomach".
And it's not just rich countries such as the UK and the US throwing good food away; it is also being wasted in poor countries in the developing world. While food languishes uneaten in fridges here, in developing countries it goes to waste because of poor harvesting, storage and transport. In Vietnam, for example, 80 per cent of rice is lost between the field and the table. "The world produces more than enough food to feed everyone," says Kate Raworth, senior policy researcher for Oxfam. "Meeting the calorie needs of every person living with hunger would take less than 3 per cent of today's global food supply."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/special-report-world-food-injustice--the-facts-on-a-plate-8449312.html
Kayla Gammie
3/2/13
9:10 am
No comments:
Post a Comment