Prayerful solutions to the world's food shortage

BY ROSALIE E. DUNBAR, NEWS EDITOR

Early this month, world leaders gathered in Rome, in response to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's invitation to help address what's being called "a silent tsunami"—the unprecedented jump in food prices around the world.

Already, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been marshalling its troops to support lifesaving distribution networks: 30 ships on the high seas, 5,000 trucks on the road, 70 aircraft in the sky. But WFP says these only amount to a stopgap in the face of massive needs it can't meet alone. The presidents of Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, along with Cuba's vice president, have created a $100 million fund to supply staple foods to their countries. But they, too, admit it will not be enough. President George W. Bush has asked the US Congress to approve millions of dollars in food aid.

While the industrialized countries are feeling the pressure of prices that have gone from an upward creep to a sudden sprint, nations like Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, and Senegal, where food is not so plentiful, have experienced food riots. In much of West Africa, one source says the price of food has risen by 50 percent; in Sierra Leone, by 300 percent. Both the United Nations and the World Bank are projecting that up to 100 million people could be reduced to poverty as a result.

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Prayerful solutions to the world's food shortage

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