Voices from the Field

There are some excellent blog posts about the global food crisis.  Compassion International's blog features a post from their staff, Karen Wright, who visited Tanzania.  She claims the global food crisis is not necessarily global, rather experienced differently in local communities.  She writes:

"For the woman I met in Tanzania, the increased cost of food meant her children could feed themselves or they could feed their mother in her illness. That’s a burden no child should have to carry. Sadly, I fear this story is not unique." Karen Wright on Compassion International's Blog

Masimba Biriwasha writes some incredibly thoughtful posts over at EcoWorldly.  One of his recent entries, "Where's All the World's Food?" focuses on short and long-term solutions to the food crisis.  I appreciate how he connects the larger political solutions to the personal story of Thai Rice farmers.

"With increased political will, fair trade and investments into agricultural systems, hopefully rice farmers in Thailand will, once again, have nights filled with sleep unafraid of waking up to a bare rice field harvested by some unscrupulous characters bent on making a quick dollar. "

Are you reading other blogs or news sources that you've found helpful on this topic?  Feel free to share in the comments.

Comments

[Karen Wright]

Thanks for your interest in my recent experience in Tanzania. If you don’t mind, I’d like to clarify the point you quoted.
Based on media reports, information Compassion has received from the field offices in the countries we serve and my personal experience in Tanzania, the increase in food prices is global. Every country is affected in some way. This is a global food crisis.

Yet, from another perspective, the crisis is also not global. The crisis is country and region specific - sometimes only certain areas are affected. The face of the crisis is different in Bangladesh than it is in Haiti or the Philippines.

Just as we are feeling the impact of rising prices in the U.S., we personally aren’t necesarily experiencing a crisis. The impact of rising food prices is global, but whether it is truly a crisis for the people it affects often depends on the region where the person lives and their individual social status. For some, rising costs means tightened budgets. For others, like the women I met in Tanzania and others living in extreme poverty, rising food prices may push even one nutritious meal a day out of reach.

[Holly]

Hey Karen - Thanks for clarifying the point I made above. I definitely think the crisis is global in the sense that the drought in Australia is impacting the rest of the world. Russia and other countries have restricted grain exports in response to the global lack of grain. That is a global impact. The cost of food is on the rise because the cost of oil has increased..that impacts the consumer in many places. We put together some resources here at Bread about the global hunger crisis. You can check them out here: http://www.bread.org/learn/rising-food-prices/