What Can we do about World Hunger?

Food First

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Thoughts about the Future

• “The way people think about hunger is the greatest obstacle toward ending it.”

-- Peter Rosset, Food First

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Thoughts about the Future

• “The only real risk is the risk of thinking too

small.”

• -Frances Moore Lappe

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Thoughts about the Future

• “The world has enough for man's need, but not for man's greed.”

--Mahatma Ghandi

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Questions

• Should we have guilt?

• We have so much food, wealth!

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Questions

• Should we have fear?

• We might lose it all!

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Food riot, 2008

Questions

• Can we protect the environment and grow enough food?

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Questions

• Should we seek justice?

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Questions

• Should we seek efficiency?

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Questions

• Can we eliminate hunger without losing freedom?

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Five Principles

• 1) Hunger results from human choices– not inexorable forces

of nature. • Therefore we can choose to

end hunger in the same way we chose to end slavery.

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Five Principles

• 2) Economic democracy– and the empowerment of

women • are keys to ending hunger

• and will also reduce world population growth.

Microfinance meeting, India

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Economic Democracy

• “Because no human being chooses hunger, hunger is proof that a person has been denied a voice in meeting survival needs.

• And, since a say in one’s future is the very essence of democracy, the existence of hunger belies democracy.”

• -- Frances Moore LappeHunger results from a lack of Economic Democracy

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Five Principles

• 3) Ending hunger need not destroy the environment– but will require sustainable

agriculture• that can be practiced by even

the poor.

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Five Principles

• 4) Greater fairness can lead to ending hunger – if we devise food

systems where those that do the work • have a greater say and

reap a greater reward.

Farmers protesting for land reform

Five Principles

• 5) The increased well-being of the poor in the third world – can enhance our own

well-being • we need not fear their

advancement.

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What can we do?

• If change is possible, we must change ourselves.

ISU student in Africa

What can we do?

• We must examine our everyday choices.

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Personal Choices

• 1) Get alternative information.

• Mainstream TV, press has a vision clouded by myths.

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Personal Choices

• 2) Educate others—– friends

– co-workers

– family.

• Speak up when others voice self-defeating myths.

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Personal choices

• 3) Choose a job that contributes to the solution rather than to the problem.

• Is accumulation of material possession the real key to a satisfying life?

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Personal Choices

• 4) Help hungry, homeless people through church, community groups.

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Personal Choices

• 5) Participate in – community planning

– more and better jobs

– affordable housing

– environmental protection.

Habitat for Humanity

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Personal Choices

• 6) Elect officials committed to addressing roots of hunger.

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Vote!

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Personal Choices

• 7) Spend money on less processed, – less packaged foods

– from co-ops or worker owned stores.

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Farmers market

Personal Choices

• 8) Boycotts have been successful: – Nestle stopped marketing

baby formula in third world

– divestment helped bring majority rule to South Africa.

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Personal choices

• 9) Become an activist.

• Social movements – brought women the

vote

– got civil rights legislation

– helped end war in Vietnam. Civil rights protest

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Moral Courage

• Compassion is essential– but is easy.

• Harder to achieve is moral courage.

• It takes courage to cry out "The emperor wears no clothes" – In the face of injustice,

inequity, malnutrition

Nigeria

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Moral Courage

• Takes courage to challenge the status quo, – to point out that the world is

awash in food – and all of the suffering is the

result of human decisions.

• We risk embarrassment, – dismissal by friends – to speak out about

widespread false understandings of the world.

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Compassion

• This courage comes from the same place our compassion comes from:

– our innate moral sensibilities,

– our deepest emotional intuitions

• about our connectedness to others' well-being.

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Compassion

• Ironically, the message of compassion and connectedness to others' well-being– underlies the dominant

western religion, Christianity

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Compassion

• But our culture has elevated economic dogma– market and property rights

– above the Christian message

• of love, compassion and connection.

Mall of America

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