Attacking Hunger at Its Roots

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:

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.
2. We will work to stimulate the private sector, by improving the storage and processing of food and improving roads and transportation so small farmers can sell the fruits of their labor at local markets.
3. We are committed to maintaining natural resources, so the land can be farmed well into the future. That includes helping developing communities adapt to climate change, which has had a major effect on the world's farms.
4. We will expand knowledge and training by supporting R&D and cultivating the next generation of plant scientists.
5. We will seek to increase trade so small-scale farmers can sell their crops far and wide.
6. We will support policy reform and good governance, because sustainable agriculture flourishes in a clear and predictable policy and regulatory environment.
7. We will support women and families. 70% of the world's farmers are women, but most programs that offer farmers credit and training target men. This is unfair and impractical. An effective agricultural system must have incentives for those who do the work. And it must take into account the particular needs of those whose futures will shape our world: our children.

These seven principles will guide us and help us set benchmarks to measure the impact of our efforts. We are committed to collecting data, assessing our progress, and when necessary, correcting our course.

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.

Comments

[rgblue]

Dear Madam Secretary,

Excellent article, but what glaringly comes to mind is that parable;
giving a person a loaf of bread will feed them for a day while giving them the tools and knowledge to farm for themselves will feed them for a lifetime.

The major player in seeds for food is Monsanto, whose seeds are not re-plantable and must be PURCHASED every year along with other products they control. So I dearly hope they are not in your planes. In fact I'd like to know what, if anything. is being done to terminate this practice and this fatally flawed seed coup? No farmer can ever be self-sufficient without seeds that can't be re-sown and passed down year after year. No farmer can ever be self-sufficient if their seeds are "owned" and controlled by someone else. No farmer can make it with these modified seeds that will eventually lead likely to mass failure starvation.

That sounds more like a nightmare than food salvation.

[partyofone]

Hillary Clinton and ...

Rose Law Firm and client Monsanto,
Monsanto et al support Clinton campaigns,
MIchael Taylor Monsanto lobbyist and Clinton FDA appointee,
Monsanto supports Clinton Foundation,
Mark Penn and Burson-Marsteller,
Troutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists
connect the dots?

http://gmfoodwatch.tribe.net/thread/78999f60-b0a6-4f52-957d-74d0bf240d96
http://www.celsias.com/article/an-open-letter-to-hillary-clinton-from-a-wellesley/

[Indra]

Yikes! This looks real bad.

[Thane MacPherson]

Isn't it time we stopped giving aid to other countries where children starve because governments block food shipments... and start looking into America, where children in the Appalachians are starving, don't have shoes, and have never felt the sting of a vaccination? Food stamps aren't the answer for a lot of people, since some are so remote that social services is a foreign concept. I don't need to watch an infomercial showing African or South American children with flies tickling their eyelids and the corners of their dry mouths... I just need to take into West Virginia and I'll see the same.

[MsMicki]

not just the Appalachian kids, but kids right in the heart of some of America's major cities. The Mississippi Delta has children that don't have shoes, clothes, and can't go to school because they don't have their own No. 2 pencils. Go figure.

[Ryan Campfield]

If our government cared about kids in Appalachia then mountain top removal coal mining would have been stopped long ago, and coal companies would not be polluting every source of fresh water they come across.

[EminemsRevenge]

Nice to see the rest of the world will be eating whilst I have to live on $5 a day for food because Obama didn't have the chutzpah to stand up to the banking industry.

When I saw this: http://www.chase-sucks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=163 it made me realise that Obama's not the only one that soul'd out to Big Banking. Imagine, there's places in NYC that pays less than minimum wage...you then have to use your credit cards to EAT...and then you max out and there's no where to turn, because to paraphrase Bob Dylan:

Up on Housing Project Hill
It's either fortune or fame
You must pick up one or the other
Though neither of them are to be what they claim
Because the GOVERNMENT don't need you
And man they expect the same.

[ParallaxView]

S. 256: Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 made it so you can no longer write off your credit card debt when you declare bankruptcy as well.

This is the only really bad bill I know of that Obama voted against. Joe Biden did vote for it. Huffpo had an article saying Biden actually helped push the bill through for the credit card companies who wrote the bill.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s2005-44

[juggernaut1729]

You will do whatever it takes to increase trade so that small farmers can sell their produce far and wide ?

Well, pardon me ..... but I don't believe you.

Fact: Every single administration of every single developed country has fought hard to keep subsidizing its farmers ....... while trying to force third world Governments to open their markets to our agricultural products.

If these people are successful, there will be MORE poverty and starvation in the world, not less.

I don't think this administration's position on the issue will be any different from that of the Bush, Clinton, Bush I or Reagan administration.

They are also going to talk the talk on eradicating world poverty... but when it comes down to a vote at the WTO, they will vote against free trade.

After all, starving people in developing countries don't influence our elections but rich American farmers and corporations do.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Of course I applaud secretary Clinton's remarks here and the effortsby both Secretary and former president Clinton in the area of ameliorating global hunger.

Don'thold your breath,..but one way the US could show immediate leadership in this area would be to ABANDON all subsidies for corn-based ethanol production and distribution.
The idea that corn-based ethanol is somehow a "green" energy conservation measure was a fallacy from the word go....even when considered ONLY from an energy standpoint....
All things considered, it'sa net loser..and not only does it not REDUCE carbon emissions...in the aggregate it actually Increases them.

This is to say nothing about the dramatic impact taking large amounts of a food staple OFF the market for a hungry global population...particularly in the developing world just to BURN IT UP in our Hummers and SUV's.

This strikes me as not only lousy public policy, but it seems downright immoral...to take food away from the hungry because we just REFUSE to deal with our obscene addiction to carbon fuels.

I suppose I might be accused of cynicism,..were I to suggest that what's really driving the subsidy has more to do with the bottom line at Archer Daniels Midland and the other big Ag/and Chemical players than any desire to wean ourselves of imported petrochemicals..eh?


Every nickel of the ethanol subsidy should be immediately re-directed into alternative clean energy technologies!!

My two cents
Regards
tm

[ParallaxView]

Have you ever seen "King Corn?"

It's a documentary on corn production in the US. The mere act of government subsidizing corn crops means the high fructose corn syrup in US food products is all government subsidized. That worst sweetner you can eat is cheep because the government subsidizes it.

This is a genetically modified crop which isn't even edible in raw form because it tastes like saw dust. It has a high starch content with no nutritional value.

Cattle live a terrible life because they are fed this crappy crop that would eventually kill them. Instead of being able to roam a field and heat grass for two years, they are locked up for one year so they can't lose weight, and then they are fed this high start corn diet that makes them gain weight rapidly and causes sours in their stomachs, then taken to slaughter before they die from the high starch diet.

Naturally beef in the US now has a higher fat content from this crappy life stile.

If the government stops subsidizing this crappy product we will be told food prices are going to go up.

[partyofone]

juggernaut1729 says "Of course I applaud secretary Clinton's remarks here ..."

why?

[ijgibson]

"So the question is not whether we can end hunger. It's whether we will." Well said Hilary !

Spot on - we spend billions arming ourselves to the teeth and inventing ever more destructive weapons - most of which will 'be in readiness' until they're obsolete and cost still more to dispose of. Meanwhile people starve and die form minor ailments.
You couldn't invent a crazier economic system, even in a madhouse !

[partyofone]

So do you agree with Secretary Clinton's support for a US foreign policy that promotes Monsanto GMO
"qaulity seeds" that farmers must purchase every year with Monsanto furtilizer, seeds that polute natural eco-systems in ways we cannot predict or control?

[Acidic]

If we tried to feed the world on an American diet, the world/society would be unsustainable. Which poses a problem for people on both sides of this argument.

[Acidic]

This is natures way of telling us there are too many people!

[Khirad]

It sounds hopelessly hippie and open to mockery, but I really do agree that this is a national security issue. Not saying no well-fed person has ever picked up a gun, but that old trope does have truth to it. Who was it I saw on C-Span talking about this? Aargh!

I do worry though, that good ol' multinational raping of indigenous' lands might be glossed over here, and that needs to be addressed as well. I'll hold my breath.

[CAPTAINSKIPPY]

Thank you for attention on this matter, Secretary Clinton. Please remember that maintaining crop and seed variety diversity should also be a priority, because many developmental efforts do the opposite, and instead narrow the crop choices, and thus creat risks of crop failure should the favored crop or variety encounter massive pestilence. Potato blight in ireland, just one example.

[cinemabon]

Brava, Madam Secretary

[FogBelter]

Madam Secretary, perhaps there is a way to address the issue of hunger while leveraging Green Technology. I know from relatives I have in the Philippines that one of the most vexing problems for subsistance farmers is access to water for irrigation. In the Philippines, for instance, it is possible to put in a rice crop twice a year ... during the rainy season and during the dry season. Many farmers don't have access to irrigation during the dry season and have to utilize diesal powered water pumps to draw the water from wells. For a poor farmer, the cost of seed, fertilizer, and pesticides is enough, add the cost of fuel for the water pump and the farmer may just decide not to plant in the dry season.

If these farmers had access to solar powered waterpumps capable of drawing enough water to irrigate their fields they might be inspired to put in a second crop and produce more food.

Water is a crucial issue all over the world, if the US Government worked with Private industry to develop low cost solar water pumps to be distributed through an Aid organization it would not only increase farming capacity, but do a lot for the image of the United States in the developing world as well.

Just a thought.

[ParallaxView]

I find this rather creepy. Check out this UK Guardian article. Indigenous people are losing their land to oil companies, mining companies, and large-scale farming operations.

"'We are fighting for our lives and our dignity'

Across the globe, as mining and oil firms race for dwindling resources, indigenous peoples are battling to defend their lands – often paying the ultimate price
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/13/forests-environment-oil-companies"

Do they really need the US government to come in and tell them how they should live, or do they need to not have their land ripped off.

Everyone is making such a big deal over global warming, but why doesn't this article mention the Amazon forest in Peru is about to be leveled so oil companies, mining companies, and large-scale farming operations can setup shop.

What Hillary writes sounds all nice and warm and fuzzy, but she's not addressing what's really going on in the world with the poor and starving masses who are poor and starving because they're being ripped off.

The last thing they need is to start living on credit cards like the US.

Read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"
Watch this documentary on how the World Bank and IMF helped Indonesia http://mrxfromplanetx.com/the-new-rulers-of-the-word

[roseau]

I respectfully disagree with Ms. Clinton. Start by creating peace in disrupted areas. Famine is a result of war in most cases. Then go on to the last item on your list - empower and invest in women. Food is a hyper-local issue, and the solutions will differ vastly from area to area. Monsanto seeds are the path to monoculture, further environmental degradation, and a method of siphoning profit from already impoverished communities.

[morganhoyle]

Globally policing the entire world with a false authority is "siphoning profit from already impoverished communities." in the U.S. further more it is a long term goal for a short sighted government, we're not going to create SUSTAINABLE world peace over night.

However solving world hunger is a much more realistic goal that in the long term will make more friends for the U.S. than arming millions of people against each other. Solving hunger is one step in the long path to world peace, and one that will give more peace to individuals that desperately need it. Its all in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

[SoVerPostEr]

Here is a website for IFPRI which will send you news updates about hunger and world agriculture issues:

http://ifpriblog.org/