Food Crisis

Soaring prices are causing hunger around the world.

THE SKYROCKETING commodity prices that have made the Farm Belt one of the most prosperous regions of the United States have had a rather different impact on large areas of the developing world. Foodstuffs have gone up 41 percent in price since October 2007, pushing many people over the line from poverty into privation or even hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization, a branch of the United Nations, has identified 36 "crisis" countries, 21 of which are in Africa. The World Food Program, another U.N. agency, estimates that it will need $500 million on top of what donor nations have already pledged to fill what the WFP calls a global "food gap."

The United States must do its part. Even before the spike in commodity prices, the fiscal 2008 food aid budget of $1.2 billion was proving inadequate. President Bush asked for a $350 million supplemental appropriation in October, to cover help for Darfur and other critically needy areas. But Congress has not yet approved that request. Meanwhile, the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers U.S. food aid, has accumulated a $120 million food budget deficit, which could grow to $200 million by the end of the fiscal year. Congress should swiftly approve the president's supplemental request, adding as much money as possible to offset recent price increases -- as Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.) and six other Democratic senators, including Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), have proposed. The alternative is selective cutbacks in aid to hungry regions, a kind of nutritional triage unworthy of the richest agricultural nation in human history.


GAS prices is the root of the this problem... Can we have alternative?????