World Food Crisis

967 million people are hungry as a result of the World Food Crisis. 24,000 people die of hunger-related causes every day, including one child every five seconds. Malnutrition has impaired physical and mental development in 178 million under-fives worldwide.

The numbers are frightening. But people are not numbers. They are children, brothers, sisters, neighbours, friends. And millions of them are parents facing choices they shouldn’t have to make. Like whether to feed themselves or their families, whether to give their sick child food or medicine.

The impact of all these causes is compounded by the global financial crisis. While food prices have dropped slightly below the height of summer 2008 prices, they remain 13 per cent higher than two years ago and the continuing volatility of prices places people living in poverty at constant risk.

World recession means less trade, less aid and less money for poor countries to help their people react to the food crisis.The financial crisis in itself means a further 40 million people will be pushed into poverty in 2009.

I hate to use a cliche when writing about something so serious but every little helps which is why I have donated £100 to Oxfam to support their work in addressing this issue, and I urge you to give what ever you can.

And if you are wondering why this post does not have a negative impact on my total that’s because I budget my charity donations every year. Otherwise it would be tempting to cut back on being charitable because of overspends elsewhere, and as ridiculous as that may sound I’m sure millions of people do exactly that.

It also ensures I stick to my commitment to charity and don’t fool myself into thinking I am charitable just because I donate a few pounds into collection tins every now and then. Plus it ensures that all my donations are gift aided which allows the charities to reclaim the tax.