This morning, one billion people around the world woke up hungry and tonight, they will go to sleep hungry. This issue has not gotten the attention it deserves, and it is a personal priority of mine and of the Obama Administration to address the challenge of chronic hunger with a very high level of focus and dedication.
Hunger is not only a physical condition. It is a drain on economic development, a threat to global security, a barrier to health and education reform, and a trap for the millions of people worldwide who work from sun-up to sun-down every day to produce a harvest that often doesn't meet their needs.
Today at the World Food Prize ceremony at the State Department, I am honoring Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, who has transformed farming in many parts of the world and saved millions of lives by identifying varieties of a key African crop resistant to drought and specific types of weeds.
We have the resources to give every person in the world the tools they need to feed themselves and their children. So the question is not whether we can end hunger. It's whether we will.
The Obama Administration is committed to providing leadership in developing a new global approach to hunger. We will look to 7 guiding principles to support the creation of effective, sustainable farming systems in regions around the world where the current methods aren't working:
Supporting sustainable agriculture won't be a side project of the Obama Administration. Attacking hunger at its roots will directly impact whether we meet our foreign policy goals and I invite each and every one of you to join this effort.
Attacking Greed at its Roots:
A critique of Hillary Clinton's "Attacking Hunger at its Roots"
By Stephen Bartlett and edited by Andrew Kang Bartlett
Secretary Clinton, the first sentence was great: “This morning, one billion people around the world woke up hungry and tonight, they will go to sleep hungry. This issue has not gotten the attention it deserves, and it is a personal priority of mine and of the Obama Administration to address the challenge of chronic hunger with a very high level of focus and dedication.”
We also agree with: “We have the resources to give every person in the world the tools they need to feed themselves and their children. So the question is not whether we can end hunger. It's whether we will.”
The ending was fine: “Attacking hunger at its roots will directly impact whether we meet our foreign policy goals and I invite each and every one of you to join this effort.”
Almost everything else showed how little, Ms. Secretary, you understand agriculture and the greed that fuels agribusiness. To wit:
Secretary Clinton: (1) We will seek to increase agricultural productivity, by expanding access to quality seeds, fertilizers, irrigation tools, and the credit to purchase them and training to use them.
Wrong: The problem is not overall productivity, but generalized poverty. Did those proposing a new Green Revolution say otherwise?
The root cause of war is sin.
A Christian should know this.
PS... your retelling of 20th century history is a bit confused. Do you suggest we should not have gone to war with german and japan?
There is such a thing as just war and non just war. As a Christian you should also know this.
The small Mexican farmer has been hurt by NAFTA. America's corporate farmers first undercut the market for the domestic maize crop driving many farmers into destitution, and -- after attaining the desireable monopolistic position -- raised prices so there is an affordability problem for Mexico's basic food stuffs. This desperation is part of the reason the drug traffic has turned so chaotic.
Both Clinton and Obama said during the campaign that they would re negotiate NAFTA to enhance human rights and job security. Anyway, I'd like to think they said that...
I suppose they have more immediate problems.
You see, the planet is not in trouble, we are. It is our anthropocentric view of the world that leads us to believe that our fate is also the fate of the planet. Nature has billions of years to evolve a replacement for us, hopefully less arrogant.
Whatever happened to "lead by example?"
It's so hard to take politicians seriously when they neglect our own country.
Let's fix us first, then tackle the rest of the world.
Google is your friend.
I'm sorry, but the leftists need to save the world to assuage their guilt over their fabulous wealth. Al Gore, George Soros, the John Kerry's, Hollywood, and all the rich democrats who threw nearly a quarter of a billion dollars at Obama for the presidency have plenty of money to save the world.
There is no power given in the Constitution for Americans to save the world. There is no authority to do what Mrs. Clinton proposes.
What this is is Democrats redistributing the wealth of the American people to foreigners. This is plunder wrapped up in self-righteous, self-serving "charity".
These people will not benefit from this. They will end up hungry again because they are corrupt cultures. In the mean time, democrats will plunder the wealth of the USA.
This is called theft.
I think I'll choose We over Me. You can stay stuck in your little world. We will make the world a better place for all while you sit off in your corner and sulk with your cynical/self-pity.
No one is stopping you from feeding people overseas. Don't be greedy now. Please, show me where in the Constitution anyone has the authority to take my money to provide for the blessings of liberty for FOREIGNERS.
They (republicans) are (or should be) free to do what they wish with their wealth, including supporting the charities they choose to support instead of the ones you want to force them to support at the end of a gun via taxation. What businesses is it of yours?
Rank and file right-wingers (even the poor ones) believe that it is immoral to loot the rich to give to the poor (even the poor foreigner). This is opposite of the rank and file left-wingers who are poor, but believe it is good to loot the rich to give to the poor (a bit self-serving, isn't it?).
If democrats really cared about the poor over seas they'd be disgorging themselves of their wealth on their behalf and they wouldn't need the middle-man Federal government to do it. It is shame for them to do this by the way, when America is in a catastrophic economic crisis.
Anyway, Christians know that Christ asked us to help the poor DIRECTLY (Proverbs 31) or through the church. He NEVER taught us to help the poor through the state. And he told us that poverty was a problem that would NEVER be solved when he said that we will always have the poor with us.
It is as immoral to loot the rich on behalf of the poor as it is to ignore the poor. Unfortunately, leftists think only ignoring the poor is immoral.
Here is a website for IFPRI which will send you news updates about hunger and world agriculture issues:
http://ifpriblog.org/
I am personally disappointed, that despite all the aid we have sent abroad with the poverty act, even though our economy is tanking, Hillary is still crying for more foreign assistance. How about adopting a foreign policy that keeps our important jobs at home? How about getting foreign countries to adopt standards and perform inspections of products, so we know we are not being poisoned by the people who have been given our jobs?
Calling anything the "only solution" is really logical fallacy, full stop.
The average woman in some of those countries only has 3 children, which she will need to work the farm.
Do you refuse to consider that the productivity of the farmland and amount of farmland in many African and Asian countries is diminishing?
Do you neglect that disease (disease that is curable, btw) keeps many able bodied people from working the land?
Do you forget that the countryside depends on the city and that many countries do not have cities that can manage and encourage economic growth because of constant coups, ignorant dictatorships or military governments with no interest in the welfare of the people?
Above all else, even if a couple doesn't have ANY children, how does that stop THEM from starving?
The earth is gravely overpopulated in many areas.
It was never meant to hold this many people.
Especially with our lack of care for our habitat and environment.
And when I say birth control, I don't just mean women.
I mean men, too.
Not a condom, a snip.
Thank you Secretary Clinton for caring about women in this country and throughout the world.