Normally, I tend to blog about education related topics on this blog. But if you scroll down to the end of any page, you will see that not only do we provide education to India’s youth, thus helping them get ahead, we also work closely together with our partners at the Mitaroy Foundation to help feed poor children so that they never have to go to bed hungry.
Which is why an article on the German state news website caught my eye about hunger in places like Niger.
I must admit, Niger is not a country I know much about. A desert state in Africa with a population of around 25 million, it ranks at the bottom of the United Nations Development Index. Over 50% of children below the age of 5 are already malnourished. And with little financial reserves to cushion disasters such as drought, war or even the Covid pandemic, Niger has suffered more than other countries. In addition to a large and poor population, it also ends up importing almost everything it needs from outside, leading to an unhealthy dependence on outside markets.
When the prices of staple foods such as rice or cooking oil rise, its citizens appeal to the government to lower the prices of food, which are now upto 40% higher than pre-Corona levels. This is coupled with the decreased purchasing power of the locals thanks to the pandemic. With the locals at the mercy of traders (who are also forced to buy food from outside the country at higher prices), government regulation seems to be the easiest way out. The government needs to step in and ensure sufficient food is available for its citizens at affordable prices. If not, the number of people affected by food insecurity (already risen from 8 million just a year ago to 12 million now!) will only rise further.
Niger is not alone. Worldwide, millions of people are under threat of rising food prices with the UN warning that hunger will worsen massively in many countries.
Can the World Food Summit in Rome provide a remedy? In Rome under UN leadership, experts and laypeople are currently analysing how the food system can be reformed so that a country is able to feed its citizens. However, summits rarely offer immediate help. Other topics such as climate change have had their fair share of summits but the remedies are usually years if not decades into the future.
One option is the kind of small scale subsistence farming as practiced in our cooperative projects with the Mitaroy Foundation. Instead of waiting for the Government to help them, the project partners used the seeds we gave them to create small scale “farms” or food gardens in their backyards, thus helping to offset food demand to a certain extent.
It seems that other countries will need to apply such an approach if it is to feed its most vulnerable.
Thorsten Edu 