Being raised in a catholic environment I was absolutely dumbfounded. I was wondering, the Vatican has so much money to end world hunger and yet doesn’t. After sitting in my kitchen trying to absorb this new info, I decided to ask the nuns at my school. Unfortunately they were busy with school things (there are only three nuns at my school).

                Still amazed I decided to look for information on the web, and all I could find were things saying, “Yeah yeah, I know their art collection is estimated at a gazillion dollars. But what about liquid assets: money in the bank? gold in their vaults? How much do they make in interest off of their investments? If they wanted to fund all of the bankrupt Catholic Churches in the US, could they do it?”. It was a never ending cycle; one site redirected me to the other and so and so forth.

            So tell me what do you think about this? Does the Vatican actually have enough money to end world hunger three times? If they do, why haven’t they done it yet?

Leroy Fick from Auburn got two million dollars from the state lottery, but still has the right to social assistance because, under the laws of the state, the winnings from the lottery do not count as regular income of the citizens.
- As long as the income of Fick doesn’t get higher then the prescribed amount he won, he will still be awarded stamps for food, regardless of the fact that he has a bank account worth a few million dollars – said Fick’s lawyer.

He added that it is the state which has concluded that Fick may be a user of coupons, so it is a problem of the law, and not Fick’s problem, regardless of the fact that the food stamps are intended for low-income families.
- If you think that I would feel bad about it or regret it, you are wrong – concluded Fick.

How fair do you think this is?

If you are not sure, take a look at these photos of poor and hungry people who can’t afford food.

Image via Wikipedia

Malnutrition is an ailment that many people throughout the world suffer from. Unlike most life-threatening maladies, this one can be traced to a single, preventable, cause that is equally as easy to treat as it is to avoid. When a person does not intake the appropriate amount of vitamins and minerals from their diet over a long period of time their body begins to deteriorate, organs begin to lose function, senses are impaired, and if not treated the individual will die. This is not caused by a genetic deformity, an immune system defect, or any other biological factor that is medically difficult to diagnose and cure but, instead, by a person’s access to the right food. In the technologically advanced world we live in today one is able to travel from New York to London in less than a day, instantly buy shares in a company 10,000 miles away, even connect visually with universities from all over the world using video chat, yet millions do not have the proper nutrition to live healthy lives. This is a well noted irony in the global community and thanks to the German plant biotechnologist Ingo Potrykus there is an affordable, ethical, and efficient way to remedy the deficiency of Vitamin A, a major cause of malnutrition.  It is called Golden Rice and it is a Genetically Modified version of rice that holds much more pro-vitamin A than regular units. Golden Rice is under scrutiny from organizations regarding the practicality of its use and its level of safety, but three things maintain GR’s need to be on the market: insufficient alternatives, a lack of evidence proving it harmful, and its economic efficiency. 

The two main alternatives to Golden Rice are: funding for more Vitamin A supplements and cultivating new nutritionally rich foods in areas that grow low-vitamin-yielding crops. The number of people organizations that would fund either of these alternatives could reach would be only a part of those effected, and they both would cost much more money to maintain long-term than Golden Rice. GR can be combined with supplements and new crop varieties to provide a “blanket” approach to the problem. Also, since Syngenta, the corporation that continues to develop the technology behind Golden Rice, has “donated all transformation events and technology, research data,… to the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board (BOKU PPT. Slide 4)” GR can be incorporated into any national or international effort to help countries with the deficiency without being stalled by corporate powers. Additionally, GR is a “sustainable, cost-free solution, not requiring other resources (Tifton PPT. slide 4)”, unlike supplements which must be shipped regularly from the country’s importing center or manufacturing plant to the towns they are needed in. 

The organizations in favor of the alternatives continue to give one major reason that GR should not be used at all and it is because they claim it could be extremely dangerous due to the genetic modification. Conversely, all studies on GR up to this point have shown that “there is no…conceivable risk to consumer health (Tifton PPT. slide 5)”, which speaks for itself. If there had been any findings that GR in fact does cause some sort of mutation or complication in humans then Syngenta and other companies that plan on continuing the research and development would surely find ways to curb these effects. Again, GR does not have to be used as the final solution to Vitamin A deficiency but rather a solid last resort that can also be incorporated with other strategies to save the lives of people who would surely die without some intervention. 

Finally, GR makes much more sense than the alternatives economically. It has been shown that not can GR be grown “without any additional inputs (Tifton PPT slide 5)”, but also can be “re-sown every year from the saved harvest (Tifton PPT. slide 5)”. This alone allows the deficient town to become self-reliant and could possibly make the need for supplements and other alternatives obsolete. If nothing, this gives another avenue for the government of countries such as India to have a solid foundation for slowly curbing the need for foreign aid on this problem. Also, the technology can be given to Indian and other countries scientist’s, so that they can begin development of their own varieties and possible improvement of GMO’s. All of this is in coordination with the fact that shipping supplements and new crop utilities internationally is subject to tariffs and other import/export expenses. 

Over all the need for GR in the market place is very apparent. People can not continue to die due to the lack of Vitamin A or any other nutrient, especially today. Because there is no alternative as amiable, no research claiming GR’s harmful effects, and the sheer economic plausibility of GR’s distribution and eventual self sufficiency in cultures, it is a global need. We should not sit around and allow our debates over the ethical issues about this stand in the way of saving human beings that desperately need a life line. As I said it would not need to be used as a final solution, but as a great way to incorporate many different methods and give these countries the ability to see a future where they may one day not have to worry at all about malnutrition. 

Do you wonder why there are so many people dying of starvation?

Food prices have sky rocket recently making it harder for the average person to purchase food especially the poorest amongst us.

Over one billion people are drinking contaminated water and dying of water-borne diseases. It would take a profound effort by the leading superpower nations of the world to eradicate hunger in their country. Many are not willing to extend this desperately needed help to its citizens out of greed.

Unfortunately, the poor are being exploited and this keeps them seriously poorer. They are not able to care for themselves or their children because of the weakness caused by malnutrition. The hunger problem is compounded when sufficient food is not readily available because of food delivery problems and drought. Famine is expected to get much worst during your lifetime!

Image via Wikipedia

World hunger is still a great issue in our world today. An innocent person dies every second due to hunger. In an hour, approximately 3,600 people die. In a day 86,400 people die and in a year about 31 million people die. An approximately 58% of all the deaths. A child, who is under the age of 5 dies every 5 seconds, which results in 700 deaths in one hours and approximately 15,000 in 24 hours (a day). On average, approximately 6 million children die due to starvation each year.  

Most of the world hunger is in the developing countries. People who have lost their homes and families in the tsunami, and the massive earthquakes. Those miserable people have no where to go. All their belongings have been destroyed, and the recession has affected them drastically. The greatest number of humans starve in South Africa, while the least number of people starve in North America.

    Luckily, there is a way to stop this hunger. By researching on Internet, I have come across a website called Freerice.com. This website has a game, where you answer questions and for every correct answer you help donate 10 grains of rice. The game is based on knowledge where you have to select the correct synonym of the given word. As you answer the questions, the rice in your bowl increases. Every day, Freerice.com donate rice to the poor around the world. It is a non-for-profit organization which is ran by the United Nations Food Program. They have only two goals to achieve:

              1) Provide free education to everyone.

              2) Help world hunger by providing rice to the hungry people for free.

Image via Wikipedia

Doctors Without Borders is starting a movement to provide a fortified supplement like a spread that is packed with required nutrients that does not require refrigeration. “For forty years there has been little done to find out what works and what doesn’t, or see how to improve the effectiveness of food aid,” said, Buddhima Lokuge, of Doctors Without Borders. Wheat and corn flour which is provided now is a disaster, it inhibits the kids from absorbing nutrients such as zinc, and buying food at home and shipping wastes money which could be spent for food. Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America said, “Half of what you spend for the needy goes for shipping”.

Image via Wikipedia

In Africa just 5% of the land that could grow high yielding rice is doing so. The soil is so depleted it cannot grow the high yielding grain. Fertilizer is beyond the means of the farmers, but with education there are answers. Trees can be planted to supplement the soil with needful nutrients. Agents to advise farmers on when and how to plant new high yield crops and how to improve and fertilize the soil must be provided. It has been done. With such a program in Sauri,Kenya, maize production has risen from 1.9 tons per hectare in 2004 to 6.2 tons today.

http://socyberty.com/activism/helping-others-has-health-benefits/

http://socyberty.com/future/survivalists/

http://socyberty.com/organizations/the-doe-network/

World leaders gathered in the Italian town of L’Aquila for the G8 summit last month reported an estimated 1.02 billion people in the world go hungry. They warned us of social unrest if global hunger is not arrested. Consider this  information: between 2005 and 2008 food prices had increased by 83%. Though the crop prices dropped in the middle of 2008, the hunger crisis is far from over.

What is the solution to hunger? The G8 solution is total, unfettered free trade. Seconding the absurd G8 logic is World Trade Organization (WTO). Their argument in support is that increased competition reduces prices and thus enhances the purchasing power of the consumers. Free trade helps transport food from places where it can be produced efficiently to where there is demand. 

But World hunger is not a simple crisis of demand and supply. The super powers use free trade clauses to discourage measures taken by developing countries to stabilize price — such as controlling import and export and using price control public distribution systems. The import bans by third world countries have a purpose: to protect the poor and vulnerable against the global agricultural price fluctuations by ensuring food availability below world prices before allowing exports to other countries.

 The reality is that free trade can distort market forces of demand and supply. G8 has purposely got the math all wrong. Free trade NOT= freedom from hunger. Fortunately for the developing countries, UN thinks otherwise. ‘World Economic and Social Survey 2008′ conducted by UN holds market liberalisation responsible for the food crisis.  The advanced countries protect their farmers through subsidies, while simultaneously insisting the developing countries do not provide any subsidies to their farmers as it is against the free trade principles. The heavily subsidized agriculture has helped rich countries to capture third world markets and flood it with cheap, subsidized food. Poor farmers in developing countries for whom agriculture is the main occupation find subsistence farming unfavorable and financially unstable. The   policies  has converted developing countries that had once been self-sufficient, and even net exporters of agricultural products, into net importers and  made them more vulnerable to high prices brought on by the changing food supply policies of the exporting big bosses. Developing countries had, in the 1960s, an overall agricultural surplus of $7 billion, but by 1990s and 2000s they turned into net food importers. The reason people in countries classified as having “widespread lack of access” are unable to procure food is because they don’t have enough money to buy the expensive food.

Freedom From Hunger through Technology?

G8 would like to improve agricultural productivity through a technological agricultural revolution, more specifically, the fast-track adoption of genetically modified crops. A genetically modified organism (GMO) is one that has a foreign gene injected into its embryonic cells. Under the articles of agreement of WTO, the food giants have been granted unrestricted freedom to enter the seed markets of developing countries. The GM food have wide ranging implications for the farmer, the health concerns of the consumer and maintaining the rich biodiversity of the environment. Let’s consider a few of them:

• The GMO technology threatens livelihoods of farmers and locks them into bio serfdom. The farmer cannot save the GMO seeds for subsequent replanting without paying royalties to Monsanto or other biotech giants he has bought the seeds from, though this was his traditional practice since thousands of years. And the GMO seeds are expensive. This has been made possible by the acquisition of  exclusive “intellectual property rights” over native plant varieties and pirated centuries of farmers’ innovation in developing several varieties of rice, cotton, mustard, corn, and soy. To ensure that farmers have no option but to return to the seed companies year after year, biotechnology giants like Monsanto have developed ‘suicide seeds’ that produce sterile crops. The major agro biotech companies have also developed ‘traitor technology’, where seeds are engineered to produce negative traits unless treated with the company’s own chemicals.These are newer forms of colonialism that will convert an indigenous farmer into an industrial worker.
• The GM crops destroy the micro-organisms of the soil and the food chain that depend on it – weeds, insects, birds and other wildlife, and replace it with genetically uniform crops that are more susceptible to disease. They require the use of highly toxic ‘broad spectrum’ herbicides designed to wipe out all plants other than the crops that have been genetically engineered to tolerate the herbicide.
• Due to the threat of contamination, it is difficult for normal crops or organic crops to remain free from the impact of GM crops once these have been released. Secondary, unintended gene transfer can take place from GM pollens released into the environment. An example is the famous lawsuit Monsanto Vs Schmeiser: Classic David vs Goliath struggle

• There are evidences of the grave risks GM foods pose for human and animal health and for the environment, including creating new strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria, new viruses from those introduced into the transgenic plants, causing reactivation of dormant viruses and producing harmful effects including cancer.

Genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase crop yields. The marginal increase in growth achieved so far is much less than what has been achieved by conventional breeding and organic farming techniques. International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development reports that low-input, low-cost agro-ecological farming methods that reintegrate natural systems into agriculture can maximize sustainability, ecosystem services, and biodiversity.

So that’s what the Global Security Act sets out to do – expand the markets for agribusiness, destroy the environment as well as the livelihoods of rural farmers and in fact, perpetuate hunger.

Here’s food for thought: What will happen in the even of an unforeseen flood/drought that swipes clean the agricultural lands? Read Doom’s Day Seed Vault

Read: Free Markets and Globalization

    Another way for many countries’ starving populations to find food is a new revolutionary idea: dumpster diving. Dumpster diving could save many people in rich countries such as Canada, U.S, U.N., China, Japan, and even though some countries are poor and are still developing, they could learn how to find food for themselves through teaching.  Also, dumpster diving could also solve another problem: global warming. Studies show that approximately one-third of man-made greenhouse gases are produced from unused food! What a waste!  Think. Around half, give or take a million, people are starving around the world, and so much of  our (and other’s) foods go directly into the waste stream! That is just unacceptable! We have to teach them how to fend for themselves, and we have to do it NOW. More and more of our world are sinking into the reaches of hunger. This is totally outrageous!
   
    Donation, a never-ending gift of food to those who cannot afford to have any.  Right goal, but wrong approach to fix it. When we donate, some might have strange reactions to the foods we give to them because they might not have tasted this sort of fruit/vegetable/meat before. The allergies might become severe as they cannot communicate with us about what’s ailing them, or the illness might be affecting their capability of speech, thus rendering them mute. Or, their voice might be so absurd that it is not recognizable.  The elderly and/or sick might not be able to consume the food we give them, as their disease/disability might require special assistance in order to digest it. 

    My opinion on how to approach the obliteration of World Hunger is that we send some well-trained people to different countries in the world to teach the starving and homeless how to find food. In a place like the U.S, we could go there and just find a starving person to go near a dumpster and look for food there. Many restaurants and grocery stores throw out things that no one buys, such as organic bananas, pastries, seafood, noodles, sushi, pain au chocolat, and more!  We cannot keep it up for long. Soon, our supply of food would shorten as their population grows and expands. This is not the right way.
   
    Action from the outside will not help if the people’s religion does not allow them to consume it, for example, Muslims cannot eat pork. Then, they would throw it away and they would go, again, starving until the next delivery. Another problem is while distribution is on its way, the weak and/or elderly might might not make it to the line, or maybe they are too weak to get there. Their energy would soon go slack as they try to get up, worsening their condition. Then, they will have to just wait until the next delivery. And if this keeps on happening, they will soon die of starvation. The fresh foods might go bad while it’s being transported there. If the villagers haven’t eaten something like this before, they will probably not eat it.  As I said earlier, these donations are only short-term and will not last long.

    Starvation and hunger across the world has grown and transformed in an all new term: World Hunger. Organizations, clubs, companies, and other groups of people are all united in one goal: to solve World Hunger. How? Most solve it by donating food. Some help in the long-term by going into the country and teaching the people there how to grow crops, find jobs, and make a living. This is what I believe we should do instead of donating and giving.

    Sure, donating does help, but food and water only lasts for so long. These people will, in time, become entirely dependent on us for food, ignoring their crop fields and instead turning their attention to packages sent from other countries. I think this is not the answer if we want to eradicate World Hunger for good.  This sort of approach is never-ending, resulting in an increase in people who need food, and who do not tend to their fields or scavenge at all anymore. This create problems and usually, some get their food given to them, stolen.  Food distribution is another thing. If one’s food is stolen, they would go the whole day without food. If this keeps on happening, it will be like we never even gave them anything at all!

    Another idea I have is for specific countries in Africa and other poor places. We could integrate donation and education by teaching them, and to make sure they do not get harmed WHILE they are learning, we would give them access to food by equal food distribution.  But I think this idea is still in its revolutionary stages, not yet ready for real action. 

    This is what I think is the solution to solving World Hunger. Education will prove better than donating in the long-term. I think this is what we should be doing.. Missing your recess snack is okay, but starvation should be eliminated.

Like many global arguments the situation with food has its root failure in responsibility. This position of having many thousands of organizations and bodies of governments with the potential, the ability to help in say one certain pocket of the world, results in a sub-position of apathy by proxy. In layman’s terms, it is someone else’s duty. 

Many experts in the field of world hunger are unable to understand the major cause of failure is not resources or ability but rather motivation or desire to do so.  The problem of world hunger cannot at this time be solved because there is not strong enough force in the world to stop it. There is no better example of a case of continued failure to solve than in the tiny, impoverished country of Haiti. The many ironies surrounding the case of this small Caribbean island are well-known. The geographic location, on the heel of Cuba, in the center of an area rich with world tourism, and of course a short distance from the United States. The heaviest burden to provide help has fallen upon the United Nations, who spread worldwide is unable to complete most of this task thrust upon it. In the case of Haiti, recent events have compounded the problem of hunger – a string of hurricanes (2008), literally one after the other, nearly wiped out food crop and with it the seeds needed to plant in the new season. Haiti is a mountainous nation and many of the starving are in remote locations and hard to reach.

Priorities of wealthier nations are thick with politics, combat and most recently their own internal issues with economy and future. Choices made by governments leave questions about the logic of these priorities. This could lead some to consider the implied belief is that feeding it’s people is a task viewed as one that is the burden of the starving nation itself. Or, the duty of wiping out hunger lies with larger, more international bodies such as the United Nations. And yet the whole picture must include many other countries, in Europe for example – France, Switzerland, United Kingdom – the list is exhaustive. 

Ordinary citizens enjoy the comfort of giving, and it appears they continue to give yet the problem of hunger seems hardly dented. On the continent of Africa the malady of starvation is rampant, compounded by rough, inhospitable terrain in parts so the growing of food is limited, although somewhat improved with new seed technologies. However, “commercial” farmers are currently up against campaigns by large food corporations who maintain control of genetically modified seed, even if the seed is sown from a subsequent crop. More recently come to light: the politics of food transport to impoverished regions of the world. In a biting irony to starvation, food that is available and closer to the stricken region may not be delivered if another, foreign company has a contact to deliver the food. The fact that the needed food must travel thousands of mile further, and may reach some people to late has yet to be appropriately addressed. 

It is clear the crushing problem of world hunger needs more immediate attention, a concerted effort by leaders worldwide if it is to be demolished and more people saved.

According to the United Nations, 25,000 people die every day from hunger related causes, most of them being children.  Together, more than 6.5 million children die every year from a lack of food and clean water.  Only 75 cents a day would feed one child — less than it costs for one cup of coffee would provide three meals a day for one child.  If you could only save one child, would it not be worth it?  Every year $30 billion is raised from ad revenue on internet sites.  A small portion of this could help put an end to world hunger.

There has been a proliferation of sites in the last few years devoted to using the money raised from online advertising to help end world hunger. Here’s a review of some of the more popular sites, how they work, where the money comes from and where the money goes to.  Does this really work?  Why can’t someone just make a program to just keep clicking the “click here” buttons?

FreeRice

This site donates rice (obviously from the name of it!).  It is formatted as a vocabulary building game.  Every correct answer earns 20 grains of rice.  In countries where rice is a dietary staple, it takes 400 grams of rice to feed one person for one day.  Since there are approximately 48 grains of rice per gram, it would take 19,200 grains to feed one person per day.  This means that you would have to get 960 vocabulary answers right to feed one person for one day.

This website is associated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.  This center “envisions a growing opportunity to use Internet technologies to improve the ways that we teach, learn, and make information accessible to citizens around the world.”  They have helped set up the website itself as well as the vocabulary tests.  They have started branching out into other subjects as well including math, geography, art, and language tests.  These tests are set up to make clicking for free rice challenging and rewarding for the users as well as the receivers of the rice.

This website is also associated with the United Nations World Food Program to help procure and distribute the rice donations.  They have donated rice to Uganda, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia and many other places.

Helpthirst

This site donates water — or actually it donates the money necessary to buy the equivalent amount of water earned.  It is formatted as a number memorizing game.  Every correct answer earns one cup of water.  Memorizing numbers is said to help with short term memory and keeps your brain active.  People are supposed to drink 8 cups of water each day.  This does not include the amount of water necessary for bathing, washing clothes or dishes.  This means you would have to get at least approximately 8 memorization numbers right to provide enough water for one person for one day to drink.

This website is associated with World Vision.  The website gives the equivalent monetary amount to the water users have earned to World Vision.  They, in turn, procure and distribute the water to countries in need.
The website itself does not have a list of countries they have helped supplied water to.  However, World Vision works in many, many countries — nearly 100 different countries in total.  Their website outlines their work in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.

FreePoverty

This site donates water or the equivalent monies to buy the water earned by users.  It is formatted as a geography game.  You can earn between zero and ten cups of water depending on how close your answer is to the location asked.  For example, they’ll ask where Kabul, Afghanistan is.  You’ll have ten seconds to click on your guess on the world map.  The closer you get to the right location, the more water you’ll “earn”.  It goes through an easy, medium and hard level with five chances to get it completely wrong.  If you get the location exactly right, you earn 10 cups of water which would be enough for one person in one day to drink.
This website has recently lost theif affiliation with a distributer and is currently looking for a new one.

Free Flour

This site donates flour (again, pretty obvious I know) or the money necessary to buy the equivalent amount of flour earned by users. It is formatted as a global trivia game.  You earn one spoon of flour per correct answer.  It takes ten spoons of flour to make one bun and 100 spoons of flour to make a loaf of bread.  The level of difficulty adjusts with the game play.

This website is associated with the World Bread Institute which buys and distributes food to the hungry and helps the hungry feed themselves.  The World Bread Institute is involved in both domestic and global food distribution.  They work within the United States on nutrional lunches for children, food stamps and welfare assistance and reform.  They work throughout Africa on food distribution, education and sustainability issues.

Other Sites

There are many, many other sites where you can donate money to hunger issues through clicking.  Several of these such as hungerfighters.com, oneclickonemeal.com and childrecare2.com are one click a day sites.  They are set up to donate money based on clicks per day instead of being formatted as games where you can earn increasing amounts for play.
There are also sites dedicated to education, health promotion, saving animals, saving the environment, forrests and plants, promoting safety, etc. etc. etc.  The list is seemingly unending and growing daily.

Does this Really Work?

It appears so, yes.  Since $30 billion a year is made on internet revenue from ads and clicking, a small percentage of this could really make a huge difference.  These sites can, through their donations, help the distributors of food and water, save lives.  The amount of people using these sites (i.e. clicking) can generate the revenue necessary for these sites to pass on.  I would be careful however and make sure to read the FAQ page on the site.  If you really want to help and ensure that your time is doing some good you can donate money to any charity of your choice.  Again, look into where the money goes.  Make sure that most of the money is going straight to help people instead of being tied up in administrative costs.  There are good charities, great charities and mediocre ones.  You can also volunteer to spend your time and money locally helping people in your own community.

Can’t I Just Make a Program to Click?

The answer is yes, you could.  However, the sites claim two problems with this.  First, it would overload their servers so that real people could not click and play (and learn in some cases).  This would discourage people from revisiting these sites.  Secondly, without real people playing and resulting company sponsorship, no money would be generated and there would be no money to distribute.  The companies would soon notice that their ads were not reaching anyone and would stop advertising.  This would collapse the whole system.

So go ahead and click away!  Maybe you can relieve some of your guilt of surfing on the job or instead of doing housework.