Enough food for everyone, if…

The world produces enough food for everyone, but there’s an if. And it’s a big IF. To tackle it, 100 major charities are joining forces for what seems the biggest NGO campaign since 2005’s Make Poverty History. My good friends at Christian Aid sent me the following press release, which I wholly support:ENOUGH-IF-FOOD-LOGO

100 MAJOR CHARITIES LAUNCH JOINT CAMPAIGN TO TACKLE HUNGER TRAP

Hunger and malnutrition in childhood will trap almost a billion young people in poverty by 2025, according to a major new campaign, launched today by Britain’s leading development charities and faith groups. ‘Enough Food for Everyone IF’ is the largest coalition of its kind in the UK since Make Poverty History in 2005.

The group warns that in a world where there is enough food for everyone, the scandal of children growing up hungry also imposes a grave economic burden on the developing world, costing £78 billion over the next 15 years.

In its first report out today the group, which numbers 100 organisations and has the backing of philanthropist Bill Gates and Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu, warns of the human and economic cost of hunger in a world where there is enough food to feed everyone.

As well as the 937 million children and young people (aged 15-40) whose life chances will be permanently damaged by the impact of childhood hunger by 2025, the report estimates that malnutrition will be costing developing countries an annual $125 billion (£78 billion) in lost economic output by 2030.

Great strides have been made in reducing poverty and 14,000 fewer children are dying each day than in 1990. But hunger is threatening to reverse these achievements. Hardworking poor farmers, especially women and their children, vulnerable and ordinary people everywhere face the highest food prices in a generation. In the UK, the numbers of people needing to use food banks has risen sharply. Climate change is making things even worse.

The campaign, which will be formally launched on January 23 at Somerset House, London and across all nations of the UK, calls on Prime Minister David Cameron to use the UK’s G8 presidency in 2013 to take action on the root causes of the hunger crisis in the poorest countries. The ‘IF’ movement challenges the Prime Minister to tackle 4 big IFs to help there be enough food for everyone:

  • IF we stop poor farmers being forced off their land, and use the available agricultural land to grow food for people, not biofuels for cars.
  • IF governments keep their promises on aid, invest to stop children dying from malnutrition and help the poorest people feed themselves through investment in small farmers.
  • IF governments stop big companies dodging tax in poor countries, so that millions of people can free themselves from hunger.
  • IF we force governments and investors to be honest and open about the deals they make in the poorest countries that stop people getting enough food.

 

Taking action on the ‘corporation tax gap’ by multinational companies alone would enable developing countries to raise enough revenue every day to save the lives of 230 children under 5 currently dying because of malnutrition.

Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu supports Enough Food for Everyone IF and said:

“Hunger is not an incurable disease or an unavoidable tragedy. We can make sure no child goes to bed hungry.  We can stop mothers from starving themselves to feed their families. We can save lives. We can do all of this, IF we are prepared to do something about it. IF we challenge our leaders to take action. IF they listen to us. It’s time the world’s decision-makers came to the right decision on hunger.  It’s time to end the unnecessary suffering caused by the failure of the current food system. We can make hunger a thing of the past IF we act now.”

Grammy Award winner, Angélique Kidjo, commented:

“We need to solve the underlying issues of famine and hunger once and for all. People are denied access to land that could produce food. Parents work tirelessly, but still can’t afford to feed their children. It’s unfair, it’s unjust and the truth is – it’s totally preventable. With enough people behind this campaign, we can make world leaders listen. 2013 can be the year we change the future by making this the beginning of the end of world hunger. It takes people coming together on a large scale demanding change to make this happen. IF you believe that everyone can and should have enough food to live, please join us.”

Ben Jackson, Chair of the Enough Food for Everyone IF Coalition, said:

“We should be proud of the great strides we are taking as a world to reduce poverty and tackle infectious diseases, but it is still the reality that more people die each year from hunger than from AIDS, Malaria and TB combined. In a world where there is enough food for everyone, this is nothing short of a scandal. We need a concerted effort from governments, civil society and philanthropists to tackle the root causes of this problem and together build a world where no child has to go hungry.”

The London launch event in the courtyard at Somerset House will begin at 6pm and will be attended by more than 1,000 campaign supporters, including actors Bill Nighy, Keeley Hawes and Bonnie Wright, musician Baaba Maal, Olympic athlete Colin Jackson and England rugby legend Matt Dawson.

It features the world’s first Twitter-powered 3-D interactive animation. The show will feature a projection which is mapped to the building of Somerset House, bringing its architecture to life in 3-D, telling the story behind the campaign: that there is enough food for everyone but not everyone gets enough food. For the first time ever, a mapped projection will incorporate live tweets from the audience. Once the Twitter target is reached, the animation will reveal the four big IFs which comprise the campaign’s demands to the G8.

Enough Food for Everyone IF events will be taking place across the UK’s four nations: in Glasgow, Scotland; in Cardiff, Wales and in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as well as regionally across more than 20 key towns and cities.

In the 12 minutes it will take to show the animation:

  • 52 children around the world will die from malnutrition;
  • £2.3 million in tax will be dodged by multinational companies operating in the world’s poorest countries,
  • The UK will have burnt enough food crops in our cars as biofuels to feed almost 90,000 people for a day.
  • Land 25 times the size of the Olympic stadium will be grabbed by multinational companies and foreign governments.

IF enough people join us in showing support for ending hunger, world leaders will be forced to act. Join us at www.enoughfoodif.org

7 thoughts on “Enough food for everyone, if…

  1. The real problem is birthrate in the third world, lets imagine your able to feed everyone how long will you be able to do that, when you have high birthrates and resource depletion .
    I think this is lookinng at the same old people the west and blaming them, and not looking at the people who are doing nothing about lowering their population without starvation, the chinese show that its possible to be done.
    I think it smacks of paternalism, to try to solve a problem that could be solved by these countrys themselves on their own.

    • NGO’s have been trying to stamp out hunger for decades, and yet there are More hungry people,

      You say things like theres “enough food for everyone” like food just appears, people have to grow it, it takes effort, its hard work.

      Lets say the uk had a population that decided what it wanted to do was have lots of kids, and we built our population up to a billion people and started to starve. Would it be the chinese’s duty morally to go out in paddy fields and feed us, I mean we would be starving.

      Would it be the chinese fault that we were starving, those greedy chinese eating all that rice they grew and we dont have no rice.

    • yup sums it up, if we need to give charity we should ship in condoms, to hear someone begging for food aid while having 12 kids, you know somehow I just feel like saying no .

      If the average person in niger has 8 kids I’d say stop food aid, or give people food aid with vasectomys, really thats paternalistic and I don’t really see its my business what happens in niger, but if I was in the charity business thats what I’d do .

      I think it would work far better than just shipping in more food

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