A Silent Tsunami

by Turkana

From the World Food Programme press release:

The World Food Programme (WFP) has said that high food prices are creating the biggest challenge that WFP has faced in its 45-year history, a silent tsunami threatening to plunge

What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent, destroying even more livelihoods and the nutrition losses will hurt children for a lifetime WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.

“This is the new face of hunger – the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran, who is meeting British Government officials after addressing a UK parliamentary hearing in London.

“The response calls for large-scale, high-level action by the global community, focused on emergency and longer-term solutions,” she said.

Good luck with that. Even in the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world, rice is being rationed at the leading warehouse retail chain stores.

Analysis being carried out by WFP supports World Bank estimates that about 100 million people have been pushed deeper into poverty by the high food prices. WFP expects to release figures next week estimating how many new people have urgent hunger needs.

She said that like the 2004 tsunami, which hit the Indian Ocean leaving quarter of a million dead and about 10 million more destitute, the food price challenge requires a global response.

At that time, the donor community, including governments, the corporate sector and private individuals, stepped up, giving a record US$12 billion to help with recovery efforts. “We need that same kind of action and generosity,” Sheeran said.

But will the United States and the world respond to something that doesn't make for such dramatic teleivision? Will the U.S. televised media even pay attention?

“What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent, destroying even more livelihoods and the nutrition losses will hurt children for a lifetime,” she said.

Which means that an urgent response is critical.

The urgency of the situation is underlined by WFP’s decision to suspend school feeding to 450,000 children beginning in May in Cambodia, unless new funding can be found in time. WFP representatives in 78 countries around the world are facing similar difficult choices.

I imagine this will be all over the American media. Right?