Feed my neighbor:

Feeding your neighbor in a complex world

We live in a world that is capable of feeding every person that lives on the planet. Abhijit
Institute of Technology

Food security resources for pastors Engage your flock!

Spring planting season Grow a row for local food programs and promote self-sufficiency Challenge your congregants to eat a simple meal of beans and rice at least once a week and donate the money they save to food security causes. Hold an international potluck dinner as a celebration of diversity and to share culinary traditions Show Daniel Penners video, Milk: From cow to consumer, and share MEDA client stories to illustrate the complexity of the food system and create greater awareness of and connection to where we get our food

Bannerjee, Massachusetts

They peer at us from the pages of our newspapers and television screens the haunting images of starving children in East Africa who are the innocent and silent victims of famine. They are among the millions affected in this current crisis, which is testing the limits of peoples compassion as we worry about systemic corruption, which, in addition to ongoing conflicts, makes us wonder if our donations of food will reach those needing it most. Why, we might also wonder, if we are born equal in the eyes of God, are so many left to die of starvation while we in the West tuck our expanding waistlines up to the table for our daily bread? In a recent special report on feeding the world, The Economist posed The 9 billion-people question, a comprehensive overview of the complex issue of food security* and the various factors contributing to rising fears about providing food for a burgeoning global population. For city dwellers increasingly isolated from modern farming, it offers an eyeopening look beyond our daily headlines about rising food prices in our local supermarkets and food riots in developing countries. If the world cannot feed its current population, how can we possibly meet the nutritional needs of the nine billion expected by 2050? And how is MEDAs work contributing to global food security? At its simplest, the solution is to boost yields and reduce waste. Through our work in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ukraine, Peru and other countries, MEDA is encouraging small farmers to adopt modern farming practices that will help them move beyond merely subsistence toward a more prosperous future.
* Food security exists when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. - World Food Summit of 1996

Fast facts
1 in 7 people are hungry Poverty principal cause of hunger 1,345M poor people in developing countries live on $1.25 a day or less 925 million hungry people world-wide (13.6% of estimated world population) Children are the most visible victims of hunger. Children who are poorly nourished suffer 160 days of illness each year Half of 10.9 million child deaths each year due to poor nutrition Malnutrition stunts growth of 32.5% of children in developing countries 1 in 6 infants born with low birth weight by malnourished mothers in developing countries 1

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(continued) Small farmers learn how to boost yields through: use of better seeds that produce more vigorous plants; sowing in rows vs. broadcasting, and through the judicious use of fertilizers and pesticides. They are using their resources more efficiently through: more intensive use of their land, and adoption of simple technologies such as drip irrigation and treadle pumps to make best use of available water supplies. Farmers in developing countries are reducing waste by: improving distribution systems so food gets to market before it rots, and better storage to protect their produce from the elements and rodents. They are also learning to work more collaboratively with each other to create distribution systems to better

Feeding your neighbor

link them to markets, respond to modern market demands and changing consumer preferences. Relief organizations provide food aid that fills stomachs and saves lives. Food aid is a response to a crisis, but we also need to look to the future. MEDA is helping to provide longer-term solutions to the question of food security by working with small farmers in their communities to ensure that more food, and more nutritious food, is grown to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding population. We also want to ensure that not only is more and better food grown, but that people in developing countries have the resources to access food by working to improve incomes. Only through greater self-sufficiency and producing a surplus to farmers needs can we hope to achieve that.

Beyond aid ... long-term solutions to hunger MEDA Resources

Feedmyneighbor.net MEDA food security resources Ethiopia The growing EDGE(T) - www. meda.org in: The Marketplace magazine, Jan-Feb 2012 Daniel Penner video, Milk: From cow to consumer - www.meda.tv Farmer to Farmer: Linkages for Food Security video - www.meda.tv MEDAs work in Ethiopia - www.meda. org (under Our Work, click on map) Asrese a role model for other Ethiopian rice farmers (client story) - www.meda.org

Other Resources
Bread for the World - www.bread.org World Hunger facts and statistics - www. worldhunger.org The complexities of famine - http://www. marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/food9-billion/complexities-famine Food Sovereignty: A Right for All Political Statement of the NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty, 13 June 2002, Rome - www.foodsovereignty.org

Feb 2012

Mennonite Economic Development Associates

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