What Can we do about World Hunger

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What Can we do about World Hunger?

• Food First

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Thoughts about the Future

• The way people think about hunger is the
  greatest obstacle toward ending it.
• -- Peter Rosset, Food First

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Thoughts about the Future

• The only real risk is the risk of thinking too
  small.
• -Frances Moore Lappe

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Thoughts about the Future

• The world has enough for man's need, but not for
  man's greed.
• --Mahatma Ghandi

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Questions

• Should we have guilt?
• We have so much food, wealth!

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Questions

• Should we have fear?
• We might lose it all!

Food riot, 2008
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Questions

• Can we protect the environment and grow enough
  food?

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Questions

• Should we seek justice?

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Questions

• Should we seek efficiency?

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Questions

• Can we eliminate hunger without losing freedom?

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Five Principles

• 1) Hunger results from human choices
• not inexorable forces of nature.
• Therefore we can choose to end hunger in the same
  way we chose to end slavery.

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Five Principles

• 2) Economic democracy
• and the empowerment of women
• are keys to ending hunger
• and will also reduce world population growth.

Microfinance meeting, India
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Economic Democracy

• Because no human being chooses hunger, hunger is
  proof that a person has been denied a voice in
  meeting survival needs.
• And, since a say in ones future is the very
  essence of democracy, the existence of hunger
  belies democracy.
• -- Frances Moore Lappe

Hunger results from a lack of Economic Democracy
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Five Principles

• 3) Ending hunger need not destroy the environment
• but will require sustainable agriculture
• that can be practiced by even the poor.

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Five Principles

• 4) Greater fairness can lead to ending hunger
• if we devise food systems where those that do the
  work
• have a greater say and reap a greater reward.

Farmers protesting for land reform
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Five Principles

• 5) The increased well-being of the poor in the
  third world
• can enhance our own well-being
• we need not fear their advancement.

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What can we do?

• If change is possible, we must change ourselves.
  

ISU student in Africa
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What can we do?

• We must examine our everyday choices.

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Personal Choices

• 1) Get alternative information.
• Mainstream TV, press has a vision clouded by
  myths.

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Personal Choices

• 2) Educate others
• friends
• co-workers
• family.
• Speak up when others voice self-defeating myths.

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Personal choices

• 3) Choose a job that contributes to the solution
  rather than to the problem.
• Is accumulation of material possession the real
  key to a satisfying life?

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Personal Choices

• 4) Help hungry, homeless people through church,
  community groups.

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Personal Choices

• 5) Participate in
• community planning
• more and better jobs
• affordable housing
• environmental protection.

Habitat for Humanity
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Personal Choices

• 6) Elect officials committed to addressing roots
  of hunger.

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Vote!
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Personal Choices

• 7) Spend money on less processed,
• less packaged foods
• from co-ops or worker owned stores.

Farmers market
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Personal Choices

• 8) Boycotts have been successful
• Nestle stopped marketing baby formula in third
  world
• divestment helped bring majority rule to South
  Africa.

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Personal choices

• 9) Become an activist.
• Social movements
• brought women the vote
• got civil rights legislation
• helped end war in Vietnam.

Civil rights protest
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Moral Courage

• Compassion is essential
• but is easy.
• Harder to achieve is moral courage.
• It takes courage to cry out "The emperor wears no
  clothes"
• In the face of injustice, inequity, malnutrition

Nigeria
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Moral Courage

• Takes courage to challenge the status quo,
• to point out that the world is awash in food
• and all of the suffering is the result of human
  decisions.
• We risk embarrassment,
• dismissal by friends
• to speak out about widespread false
  understandings of the world.

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Compassion

• This courage comes from the same place our
  compassion comes from
• our innate moral sensibilities,
• our deepest emotional intuitions
• about our connectedness to others' well-being.

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Compassion

• Ironically, the message of compassion and
  connectedness to others' well-being
• underlies the dominant western religion,
  Christianity

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Compassion

• But our culture has elevated economic dogma
• market and property rights
• above the Christian message
• of love, compassion and connection.

Mall of America
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