"World hunger drops for 1st time in 15 years" by Associated Press | September 15, 2010
ROME — The number of chronically hungry people in the world dipped considerably below the 1 billion mark — the first drop in 15 years — thanks partly to a fall in food prices after spikes that sparked rioting a few years ago, UN agencies said yesterday.
Keep that in mind as we make our way through the grocery store.
Still, an estimated 925 million people are undernourished worldwide, and the latest figures do not reflect the repercussions from the massive flooding in Pakistan.
Keep Pakistan in mind as well.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization’s report suggested some progress in the battle to end hunger but stressed that the world is far from achieving the Millennium Development Goal, promoted by the United Nations, of halving the proportion of undernourished people from 20 percent in 1990-92 to 10 percent in 2015.
Maybe the U.N could have them down for lunch:
"Every table was set with a single fresh rose (from the rose gardens outside, I was told) and a full complement of three forks, two knives, and two spoons in silver plate..... The buffet tables could have graced a high-end ocean liner. I watched a gentleman in colorful African garb pile his plate with slices of roast sirloin and potatoes mashed with feta cheese. A post-retirement-age couple from the East Side scarfed up most of the egg rolls, though more came out quickly....
I made for the roast leg of lamb with rosemary sauce after I filled my salad plate with chilled asparagus and slices of a duck and pork terrine.... fresh tomato soup and bowls of pasta primavera.... The dessert buffet table practically groaned under a spread of apple and pumpkin pies, cheesecakes, tarts, half a dozen cheeses, sliced fruits, bowls of berries, and, off to one side, three urns of ice cream"
Yeah, they are really helping the hunger problem (their own)!
The report estimated....
That flush you just heard was the report going down with the, well, you know.
The drop in the chronically hungry is partly because food prices have fallen from peaks in 2007-2008, when high prices sparked violence in several developing countries, and because cereal and rice harvests have been strong. Cereal production this year was the third-highest ever recorded, despite a drought-fueled wheat shortfall in Russia, said FAO director-general Jacques Diouf.
Didn't those crops also burn up?
--more--"
Things sure changed in three months:
"Surging food costs hit poorer nations" by Associated Press | June 7, 2010
BEIJING — Families from Pakistan to Argentina to Congo are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions, and forcing some to give up eating meat and fruit.
So what am I to make of my lying newspaper, readers?
Whatever lie fits the agenda of the moment, 'eh?
Scraping to afford the next meal is still a grim daily reality in the developing world even though the global food crisis that dominated headlines in 2008 quickly faded in the United States and other rich countries.
Yeah, I noticed the elite classes are still eatin' good.
With food costing up to 70 percent of the family income in the poorest countries, rising prices are squeezing household budgets and threatening to worsen malnutrition, while inflation stays moderate in the United States and Europe.
Good way of killing off all those "useless eaters," as someone once said.
Compounding the problem in many countries: Prices hardly fell from their peaks in 2008, when global food costs jumped in part due to a smaller US wheat harvest and demand for crops to use in biofuels.
Yeah, I NEVER LIKED the globalist idea of BURNING FOOD!
Majeedan Begum, a Pakistani mother of five, said a bag of flour for bread, the staple of her family’s diet, costs three times what it did two years ago in her hometown of Multan.
She can no longer afford meat or fruit....
And that was BEFORE the FLOODING!
