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WINNIPEG, Man—Hunger in the developing world is surging as food prices climb, says a spokesperson for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC).

An estimated one billion people, almost one sixth the world’s population, are now undernourished.

“The terrible thing is that nobody has to be hungry—there is more than enough food in this world for everyone,” said Dan Wiens, coordinator of MCC’s water and agriculture programs.

The main problem, he said, is the unequal distribution of food. This is caused by a number of  factors including the growing demand to divert oil-bearing crops into biofuels, and the increased consumption of grain-intensive livestock, poultry and dairy products.

But the current food crisis is driven by other factors as well. Food reserves around the world are low. Meanwhile, some countries with food surpluses are cutting their food assistance contributions because of tough economic times. With high food prices, these contributions don’t buy as much.

High food prices typically squeeze the poor first because they don’t have financial reserves, explained Wiens. According to the World Bank, there has been an increase of approximately 44 million people living in dire poverty over the past six months. Dire poverty is defined as someone living on $1.25 (U.S.) or less a day.

Among the most vulnerable are people who spend more than half of their income on food. About two-thirds of the people in this vulnerable group are farmers and farm workers who do not benefit from rising food prices. They don’t produce surplus food that can be sold and don’t have access to storage, transportation and marketing systems to sell surplus food.

There are also seasonal times--between harvests for example--when food is scarce. If  farmers don’t have surplus food, can’t buy food or don’t receive food assistance, they  cope by selling their livestock or seeds needed for the next season’s crop. Another alternative is family members taking turns eating each day--deciding who gets to eat and who doesn’t.

“These low income farm families are spending 50 to 80 per cent of their income on food and when there is a price increase of 30 per cent, they go hungry,” said Wiens.

MCC is taking a multi-faceted approach to reducing hunger. This includes both food assistance and addressing hunger’s underlying causes.

For example, MCC supports projects that improve the  income and standard of living for the rural poor in developing countries.

“Working with small-scale farmers is a very efficient way to reduce the level of global hunger,” said Wiens. “Most farmers want to stay in their rural setting and we want to give them the option to stay on the farm.”

In partnership with local organizations overseas, MCC is working with small-scale farmers to improve their lives through conservation agricultural practices, also known in Africa as Farming God’s Way.

The three fundamental principles of conservation agriculture are reduced or zero tillage, maintaining a permanent organic ground cover and biological soil fertility management through composting, crop rotation and green manure.

“The interest level of farmers is very high,” said Wiens. “It is a different model of farming that is yielding amazing results. In southern Africa, for example, five-fold increases are not uncommon for farmers who switched from heavy tillage to conservation.”

Farmers, he said, are acutely aware of the important connection between soil health and crop yields. “Farmers are saying, ‘if you feed the soil, you’ll have food on your table’,” he said.

Based on the success in African countries, MCC is now working with partner organizations in Latin America and the Middle East to introduce and promote conservative agriculture practices.

Gladys Terichow is a writer for MCC Canada

For more information visit mcccanada.ca/food.

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