Category Archives: World Food Crisis

New Year’s Resolutions: Creating a Better Food World

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Resolving to eat better and support a healthier, more sustainable food global system

‘Tis the time of the year to make make resolutions, and I am pleased to offer this guest post by Danielle Nierenberg and Ellen Gustafson, founders of the brand new Food Tank: The Food Think Tank. Danielle is based in Chicago and Ellen is based in San Diego, and I here in Colorado have added a few personal notes in italics to their guidelines, as well as links to resources they cited.

Cultivating a Better Food System in 2013

As we start 2013, many people will be thinking about plans and promises to improve their diet and health. But we think a broader collection of farmers, policy-makers and eaters need new, bigger resolutions for fixing the food system — real changes with long-term impacts in fields, boardrooms and on plates all over the world. These are resolutions that the world can’t afford to break with nearly one billion still hungry and more than one billion suffering from the effects of being overweight and obese. We have the tools—let’s use them in 2013!

Growing in Cities:  Food production doesn’t only happen in fields or factories. Nearly one billion people worldwide produce food in cities. In Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, farmers are growing seeds of indigenous vegetables and selling them to rural farmers. (Claire’s note: Kibera dwellers, many of them women, grow food in “vertical gardens,” as reported by Nourishing the Planet.) At Bell Book & Candle restaurant in New York, customers are served rosemary, cherry tomatoes, romaine and other produce grown from the restaurant’s aeroponic rooftop garden.

Creating Better Access:  People’s Grocery in Oakland and Fresh Moves in Chicago bring mobile grocery stores to food deserts giving low-income consumers opportunities to make healthy food choices. Instead of chips and soda, they provide customers with affordable organic produce, not typically available in their communities. (Note from Claire: “The Apple Pushers,” an award-winning film about fi8ve pushcart vendors bringing fresh produce to underserved communities in New York touched my heart. When superstorm Sandy wreaked so much havoc in the New York area, I wondered what happened to these produce peddlers. Anyone know?) Continue reading →

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Bloggers for a Good Cause

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Recent Copper Canyon village visit underscores hunger and nutrition crisis

I’m at a convention in Mazatlan, Mexico, right now — staying a a fancy resort hotel where a lavish buffet is put out every morning in the beach restaurant and lunch is also available, where the deli sells goodies from 7:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m., where dinner is served in a lovely restaurant, and where water is lavished on swimming pools, fountains, lawns and gardens. I came here after visiting the Copper Canyon, a stunning system of seven canyons that could swallow our own Grand Canyon. In addition to jaw-dropping beauty, the Copper Canyon region is home to somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 Tarahumara Indians. These shy people are known for their incredible ability as endurance runners, for the colorful garments the women wear and for their skill as basketweavers.

Many live in remote villages that can only be reached on foot, inhabiting the simplest of dwellings — adobe and wood houses, even caves, without running water or electricity. Their simple diet is prepared over wood fires in open kitchens when weather permits, indoors when it doesn’t. In summer, when fruits and vegetables grow on the canyon top and in small, high valleys, fresh fruit and vegetables are available. But at this time of year, their food choices are limited.

I took a tour to the small community (about 200 people) of San Alonzo. Guide Gustavo Renteria stopped at a market in the town of San Rafael to buy bags of mangoes and oranges, as well as some crunchy snacks. “The children,” he said, “don’t get enough vitamin C in winter.” They certainly get enough D, because they play outside year-round — and run out to the dirt road whenever they see the dust cloud of a vehicle that might be carrying basket-buying tourists. We weren’t there to buy, but in addition to fresh fruit, we brought with us school supplies donated to the Tarahumara by an Australian aid age. We distributed these to children who ran out from each spread-apart house when they saw us approaching. Tarahumara children can certainly use fresh produce and school supplies, but they are far better off than children elsewhere who are perpetually hungry and malnourished, and for whom school is not an option.

Under the umbrella of BloggerAid (Food Bloggers Uniting to Aid in the Alleviation of Hunger) , food bloggers trying to make a dent in the world food crisis. Their current project is a recipe book whose proceeds will go to anti-hunger efforts. The book is targeted for sale on Amazon by November/December 2009, and you can click here to find out how to contribute a recipe. The deadline is February 12. You do not have to be a member of BloggerAid to submit. Many thanks to Gloria Chadwick of Cookbook Cuisine for pointing this out.
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Today is World Food Day

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World financial crisis dashes high expectations for anti-hunge efforts

Today is World Food Day was established in 1981 as a way to focus world attention the on-going food crisis and provide a platform for year-round action. However, the food crisis, especially in sub-Sahara Africa, has been eclipsed by the 208 international financial meltdown. Back last June, world leaders met in Rome to address the food crisis and made commitments to improve agricultural productivity, but the world has changed a lot since June, and according to experts, most had not yet been put into place. People are still going hungry.

According to a Reuters report, “The world’s leading crusaders against hunger voiced frustration on World Food Day on Thursday that the global financial crisis had overshadowed a food crisis tipping millions towards starvation. The World Bank predicts that high food and fuel prices will increase the number of malnourished people in the world by 44 million this year to reach a total of 967 million.”

Heavyweight supporters on behalf of humanitarian causes have weighed in rich nations’ rush to bail out financial institutions even as starving and malnourished people in poor countries continue to suffer. Jacques Diouf, head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, observed that the world financial crises has overshadowed hunger in the public eye. “The financial crisis is a serious one, and deserves urgent attention and focus, but so is the question of hunger, and millions [are] likely to die. Is that any less urgent?,” said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The cost of wheat, rice, maize and other staples has skyrocketed in the past year. Pope Benedict blamed “boundless speculation” in markets for high food and fuel prices and “selfishness” in the world’s rich and inequitable distribution of resources.

Voice of America reported, “Uganda is probably one of the more optimistic places to be based here in Africa. This is a food basket. It looks like the rains are good. The food is still flowing. That said, we still have plenty of people that really are having a lot of trouble getting the food they need, particularly Karamoja (in northeastern Uganda). But outside of Uganda, in the region, places like Kenya, that’s just being faced with a whole series of problems with their food security linked to the post-election violence, to some bad cropping conditions. And where do you go to when you have a food deficit? You certainly want to look at the international markets. So this financial meltdown is going to cause all sorts of problems clearly,” said the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Todd Benson, head of the Uganda Strategy Support Program.

Another tragic byproduct of failed financial policies of recent years.

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Great American Dine-Out Week is Now!

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Seventy-three Colorado restaurants participate in anti-hunger fundraiser

Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out, now presented by American Express, has evolved into a national campaign that puts the nation’s restaurant industry (independents and chains) in an effort to combat childhood hunger in America. It began on Sunday, September 21 and runs through September 28.

Individual restaurants select their participation level, contributing up to 5 percent of sales during the fundraising period. At least 73 Colorado restaurants — most concentrated on the Front Range — are participating. Click here for a map and list. According to the SOS website, “The majority of funds support this work in the communities that have raised the funds, and go to organizations that provide programs and services that help provide nutritious food to children where they live, learn and play.”

Other national anti-hunger fundraisers throughout the year with the same or similar sponsors include Taste of the Nation (now in its 20th year), the Great American Bake Sale, A Tasteful Pursuit and Operation Frontline. In all, SOS says that its efforts have raised more than $210 million for hunger relief. As the organization explains:

“Today’s headlines offer sobering news: high unemployment, food riots
overseas and record-high prices for fuel and food here at home. Many Americans
are struggling to stretch their budgets far enough to cover basic
needs.

“Soaring costs on sustainable foods like milk, eggs, fruits and vegetables
are hitting the nation’s poorer families the hardest. Enrollment in federal food
stamp programs has risen steadily since 2007 and is expected to hit 28 million
by October of this year—the highest since the program launched more than 40
years ago.

“Food banks across the nation are seeing more clients as supplies slowly
dwindle. To date, more than 33 million Americans live below the poverty line,
earning annual incomes of less than $20,000. Among the individuals most affected
by all this— more than 12 million children. With food prices expected to rise
even higher and schools closing for the summer, many food banks across the
nation anticipate even greater demand. And, as shelves become barer, many are
reaching out to donors and local businesses for financial support.”

And that, indirectly, means us, the dining public, so if you are going out to eat this week, go to a participating restaurant. This may be the one time that I actually encourage diners to go to chain restaurants, because several have signed on. They include Bucca de Beppo, Lone Star Steakhouse, McCormick’s and McCormick’s & Schmick’s, Spicy Pickle, Ted’s Montana Grill and others. Then again, such fine-dining establishments as the Palace Arms (303-297-3111)in Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel and Larkspur in Vail are also taking part.

In fact, it’s a great time of year for Larkspur (970-754-8050). You can view the golden aspen, take advantage of the restaurant’s fall special (three-course dinne for $25, plus 50 percent off wine) and make a small indirect contribution to anti-hunger efforts too. Larkspur sent out a press release indicating that they are contributing through October 25, which is the end of their fall season and adds an additional month to the SOS program. Just don’t plan on Larkspur this Saturday, September 27, because the restaurant will be closed that day.

I only wish that I had posted this reminder at the beginning of the fundraiser rather than half-way through, but it’s not too late.

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G-8 Summiteers Tackle Global Food Crisis — or Not?

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World leaders dine well while confronting such gl0bal issues as world hunger

I’ve tried to focus my blog posts on local foods, meals I’ve eaten in restaurants (whether close to home or when I’ve been traveling), recipes for dishes that I’ve prepared and other “safe” topics. But I can’t help but remark on the current G-8 conference in Hokkaido, Japan, which United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, described as an “unprecedented opportunity for global leadership to tackle the global food crisis that is plunging millions around the world into hunger.” The summit has cost a reported £238 million to put on. How many mouths could that alone feed. If the industrialized nations indeed address the food crisis, it will prove to be a food investment. If not, it’s money that could have been better spent in other ways.

Whatever happens with the UN’s suggested Partnership for Food program, the leaders of eight industrialized nations and their staffs are not feeling any hunger pangs themselves. Two reporters named Patrick (Patrick Wintour and Patrick Burnham) described it in The Guardian:

“As the food crisis began to bite, the rumblings of discontent grew louder.
Finally, after a day of discussing food shortages and soaring prices, the
famished stomachs of the G8 leaders could bear it no longer.

“The most powerful bellies in the world were last night compelled to stave
off the great Hokkaido Hunger by fortifying themselves with an eight-course,
19-dish dinner prepared by 25 chefs. This multi-pronged attack was launched
after earlier emergency lunch measures – four courses washed down with
Château-Grillet 2005 – had failed to quell appetites enlarged by agonising over
feeding the world’s poor.

“The G8 gathering had been seen as a ‘world food shortages summit’ as
leaders sought to combat spiralling prices of basic foodstuffs in the developed
world, and starvation in the developing world.

“But not since Marie Antoinette was supposed to have leaned from a
Versailles palace window and suggested that the breadless peasants eat cake can
leaders have demonstrated such insensitivity to daily hardship than at the
luxury Windsor hotel on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.”

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