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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] One Billion Holiday Wishes
  • Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:02:27 -0700


One Billion Holiday Wishes
http://blogs.worldwatch.org/one-billion-holiday-wishes/

The holidays are a time for putting others before yourself. And with the
recent announcement that the world’s population has surpassed seven billion,
there are a lot more ‘others’ to consider this year. Nearly one billion
people in the world are hungry, for example, while almost the same number are
illiterate, making it hard for them to earn a living or move out of poverty.
One billion people—many of them children—have micronutrient deficiencies,
decreasing their ability to learn and live productive lives.

Let's not forget about the 1 billion people who lack basic goods this holiday
season. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack)

But there are hundreds and hundreds of organizations working tirelessly in
communities at home and abroad to fix these problems.

One Billion Hungry

Although the number of undernourished people worldwide has decreased since
2009, nearly one billion people go to bed hungry each night. This number is
unacceptably high. Malnutrition contributes to the death of half a billion
children under the age of five every year, and in Africa alone, one child
dies every six seconds from hunger.

But organizations, such as the World Food Programme, are using home-grown
school feeding (HGSF) initiatives to alleviate hunger and poverty. HGSF
programs in Brazil, India, Thailand, Kenya and other countries work to
connect local producers with schools, helping to provide children with
nutritious and fresh food, while providing farmers with a stable source of
income.

One Billion Tons of Food Wasted

Roughly 1.3 billion tons of food – a third of the total food produced for
human consumption – is lost or wasted each year. Within the United States,
food retailers, services, and households waste approximately 40 million tons
of food each year—an amount that has been estimated to be enough to feed the
close to 1 billion hungry people.

Thankfully, organizations around the world are working to educate people on
the importance of preserving food. In New York City, City Harvest collects
surplus food from food providers and distributes it to over 600 shelters and
other agencies.

And in West Africa, farmers are using the power of the sun to dehydrate
fruits such as mangoes and bananas. Experts estimate that, with nearly all of
their moisture removed, the fruits’ nutrients are retained for up to 6
months, allowing farmers to save the 100,000 tons of mangoes that go to waste
each year.

One Billion Micronutrient Deficient

Nearly one billion people suffer from micro-nutrient deficiencies, including
lack of Vitamin A, iron and iodine Between a quarter of a billion to half a
billion children with vitamin A deficiencies become blind every year, and
half of these children die within 12 months of losing their sight.

These problems could be fixed by ensuring access to nutritious foods.
Organizations such as AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center and the Developing
Innovations in School cultivation (Project DISC) have been working to combat
this problem. AVRDC works to expand the vegetable farming sector across
sub-Saharan Africa, increasing access to nutrient-rich crops. And in Uganda,
Developing Innovations in School Cultivation, Project DISC, educates youth on
the importance of agriculture and nutritious diets. Students in the program
learn about vegetables and fruits indigenous to their communities, as well as
how to process and prepare these foods for consumption. “If a person doesn’t
know how to cook or prepare food,” says Edward Mukiibi, one of the project’s
founders, “they don’t know how to eat.”

One Billion Overweight

Lack of access to healthy food does not only result in hunger. More than one
billion people around the world are overweight. Of these, nearly half are
obese. And nearly 43 million children under the age of five were counted as
overweight in 2010. Surging international rates of heart disease, stroke,
diabetes, and arthritis are being attributed to unhealthy diets, and 2.8
million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter has urged
countries around the world to make firm commitments to improving their food
systems. In Mexico, where 19 million are food insecure yet 69.5 percent of
the country is overweight or obese, De Schutter has called for a “state of
emergency” to tackle the problem. He attributes the hunger-obesity
combination to the county’s mono-cropping and export-led agriculture, and
argues that a change to agricultural policies could tackle these two problems
simultaneously.

One Billion Illiterate

Over three quarters of a billion people—793.1 million adults—are illiterate.
Although the number of people unable to read has decreased from one billion
in 1990, illiteracy prevents millions of people from moving out of poverty.

For farmers, being illiterate can limit access to information such as market
prices, weather predictions, or trainings to improve their production. Yet
through the work of a team of researchers known as Scientific Animations
Without Borders, illiterate farmers across the world are able to view
educational trainings on how to create natural pesticides or prevent crop
damage using solar treatments, using short animated videos accessible on
mobile phones. In India, farmers can receive daily updates via text or
voicemail on weather and crop prices through subscription services set up by
major telephone companies. Kheti, a system operated by the Sheffield Hallam
University in the U.K., even allows farmers to take pictures of problems they
are having with their crops, and send them in for advice. With over 4.6
billion mobile phone subscriptions globally, projects such as these have the
potential to reach and improve the lives of many around the world.

As we gather together this holiday season to reflect on the things most
important to us, let us also take the time to remember the billions of others
who share our planet. Too many of the world’s neediest people will start the
New Year without sufficient food or education. But organizations around the
world are finding ways to nourish both people and the planet.




  • [Livingontheland] One Billion Holiday Wishes, Tradingpost, 12/25/2011

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