A Hungry Planet

A Hungry Planet

The full special is available on our Latest Broadcast page starting at 10:00 p.m. EDT Wednesday. Full streaming video of this special will be available and archived on this web page on Thursday.

**Web exclusive** - More questions and answers about the food crisis from our experts available here.

Watch and comment on our question-and-answer with Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda here

Find out more about our panellists.

Read the full list of questions about the food crisis that you, our viewers, posted to our website.

Listen to the CBC podcast of Sunday Edition, where Frances Moore Lappé was recently interviewed about the food crisis.

Play the Free Rice game, and for every word you get right, they donate rice!

The World Food Programme website has lots of useful information on this topic. To donate money to Myanmar cyclone victims, go here.

You can also donate via the Humanitarian Coalition.

Food Shortage

May 14, 2008 (Wednesday)

From what's causing the price and supply problems to how to fix them, we present a special program to answer your questions about the food crisis

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Special Features

Food Shortage

May 14, 2008

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Interview with Bev Oda

Airs tonight (Wednesday)

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Panellist Bios

Food Shortage Panellists

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Food Shortage

Airs tonight (Wednesday)

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Living on Empty

May 6, 2008

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Interview with Ary Vreeken

Edited interview transcript

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Diaries: Living on Empty

* *Web exclusive*

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Photogallery: Living on Empty

** Web exclusive

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The Problem with Trade

April 30, 2008

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More Money Needed

April 29, 2008

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1 billion Asians need help in food crisis: development chief

IN DEPTH: Rice riots and empty silos: Is the world running out of food?

High-level UN task force to tackle global food crisis

Soaring food costs threaten world's political stability: UN official

Video

Keith Boag reports for CBC-TV (Runs: 3:24)

Play: Real Media »

Play: QuickTime »

Beating the Hunger Crisis

May 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm | posted by ONE.Partners
There is more information at the site.

You signed ONE’s petition to President Bush about the global hunger crisis—137,000 of you did, in fact. Our nation’s leaders are hearing our voices. But this crisis is still in the news. People are still going hungry.

You can keep the pressure on by taking another next step.

Join ONE partner Bread for the World’s emergency online campaign, Recipe for Hope. For six weeks, from Mother’s Day through Father’s Day, you’ll receive an email with an Ingredient for Despair—more information on the causes of this crisis—and an Ingredient for Hope—specific actions you can take to help end it. Bread will tell you something you can do and something you can say to our nation’s leaders. Then we’re all doing our part to help hungry people around the world at this perilous time.

Food crisis is grave in Afghanistan, one of world's poorest countries: UN

US pledges more cash for hungry

President George W. Bush wants America to spend a further $770 million (NZ$990 million) to help alleviate dramatically escalating food prices that threaten widespread hunger and increasing social unrest around the world.

The appeal to Congress takes the total in emergency food funding close to $1 billion.

In a surprise appearance at the White House, Bush announced he was asking lawmakers to approve the additional funds for global food aid and development programmes.

The money - to be directed primarily at needy African nations - is being included in a broader $70 billion Iraq war funding measure for 2009 that the White House sent to Congress.

"In some of the world's poorest nations, rising prices can mean the difference between getting a daily meal and going without food," Bush said. "The American people are generous people and they're a compassionate people. We believe in the timeless truth 'to whom much is given, much is expected."'

The new money comes on top of $200 million Bush ordered released two weeks ago for emergency food aid. It is in addition to a pending $350 million request for emergency food aid. Because the new funds are part of a 2009 budget, they will not be available for distribution until the start of the fiscal year on October 1, even if they are approved sooner.

Even so, Bush called it "just the beginning" of the US effort to help. He said the United States would spend a total of $5 billion this year and next on food aid and related programmes. "America's in the lead, we'll stay in the lead and we expect others to participate along with us," he said.

The money is aimed at meeting immediate needs with direct shipments of food aid, and the White House said it would allow for millions more people to get help. Emergency aid accounted for US$620 million of the request, said Steve McMillin, deputy director of the president's Office of Management and Budget.

The funds also have long-term aims, with $150 million aimed at boosting US programmes to help farmers in developing countries increase productivity and buy local crops, so communities are less in need of emergency help in the first place.

The issue has become more urgent because of food shortages and rising prices that, combined with high gas costs and rising home foreclosures, are putting a huge squeeze on families at home and abroad. What has been termed the first global food crisis since World War II has resulted in cries for help from United Nations officials and raised questions about how Bush will respond.

Some have blamed the food crisis in part on Bush-backed policies that push food-based biofuels such as ethanol as alternative energy sources.

Bush says diverting corn and soybeans into fuel is still a smart approach, though he favours increasing funding for research into eventually using wood chips or switchgrass rather than food crops. His chief economic adviser, Edward Lazear, said ethanol made from corn was responsible for just 2 to 3 per cent of the overall increase in global food prices, which are 43 per cent up this year over last year.

The announcement drew praise from several quarters.

"Millions of people around the world may be saved from starvation if we can quickly move forward with the president's request," said Democrat Senator Dick Durbin. "Global aid is not only the right thing to do; it's the smart and safe thing to do.

The United States is the world's largest provider of food aid, delivering more than $2.1 billion to 78 developing countries last year.

- AP

If they took the money for war and fed people everyone would have food. But Bush wants to continue the wars for his friends to make profit. He obviously really doesn't care about the hungry or more money would be allocated to the hungry. Comparatively speaking. Do the math. Feed the hungry or fund his war which is it. Pass his bill

Food riots 'will spread'

Food riots in developing countries will spread unless world leaders take major steps to reduce prices for the poor, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said yesterday.

Despite a forecast 2.6 per cent rise in global cereal output this year, record prices are unlikely to fall, forcing poorer countries' food import bills up 56 per cent and hungry people on to the streets, FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said.

"The reality is that people are dying already in the riots," Diouf told a news conference.

"They are dying because of their reaction to the situation and if we don't take the necessary action there is certainly the possibility that they might die of starvation.

"Naturally, people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react."

The FAO said food riots had broken out in several African countries, Indonesia, the Philippines and Haiti. Thirty-seven countries face food crises, it said in its latest World Food Situation report.

Some of the worst tensions have been in Haiti, where protests at the high cost of living descended into riots last week and four people were killed in clashes with security forces.

There is concern about rising prices in the Philippines, but it was not clear what incidents the FAO was referring to. "I am surprised that I have not been summoned to the UN Security Council, as many of the problems being discussed there would not have the same consequences on peace, security and human rights [without the food crisis]," Diouf said.

Increased food demand from rapidly developing countries such as China and India, the use of crops for biofuels, global stocks at 25-year lows and market speculation are all blamed for pushing prices of staples such as wheat, maize and rice to record highs.

While people in richer countries have noticed higher supermarket prices, the effect is far more pronounced in developing countries, where 50 to 60 per cent of income goes to food compared with just 10 to 20 per cent in the developed world.

Diouf called on heads of state and government to attend a food crisis summit at FAO headquarters in Rome on June 3-5.

He said the priority was a "massive seed transfer", to ensure farmers in poor countries could buy seeds, fertiliser and feed at prices they could afford.

Other measures include creating financial mechanisms to ensure poorer food-importing countries could continue to buy the food they need and give a larger proportion of aid budgets to agriculture, Diouf said.

The comments echoed those of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who called this week for a co-ordinated response to the food crisis which would include reaching a deal on the Doha trade talks and the possible use of market-based, risk-management instruments to avert food price volatility.

Diouf said it was normal to expect developing countries to put controls on food exports, even if that exacerbated global food prices. The price of rice jumped 40 per cent in three days recently when India and Vietnam banned exports, an FAO official said.

"Export bans are a normal reaction for any Government that has a prime responsibility to its people," he said.

Expanded crop plantings this year should mean a 2.6 per cent increase in cereal output, with wheat up 6.8 per cent on last year, the FAO has forecast.

But with only a small proportion of that reaching the open market, the effect on prices will be negligible as other price pressures remain, it said.

- REUTERS