By Dave Toycen

According to UNICEF, one child under the age of five will die every seven seconds today from a hunger-related cause. No, this is not a typo. It means five million children’s lives are lost every year. That’s something to think about as we “celebrate” World Food Day.

This year, there is little to celebrate. Soaring food prices have set back global efforts to cut hunger in half by 2015. Further, food supplies have been reduced dramatically by three primary factors: climate change is claiming formerly cultivatable land; Western farmers are shifting production from food to more profitable biofuels; and more land in developing countries is being used for cash crops. And if that weren’t enough reason for pessimism, there is the current global economic turmoil that threatens the aid budgets of Western nations. We are in the midst of a perfect storm with the world’s hungry caught in its vortex.

Internationally, World Vision is the UN World Food Programme’s largest non-government distributor of food aid to people in crisis. In 2007, we delivered 412,656 metric tonnes of food with the UN and other government partners, benefiting 11 million people. We understand the urgent need to deliver food to the hungry, whether their food needs stem from poverty or from natural and man-made disasters. But we also know that we need more than just food aid to solve the current situation where more than 850 million people go to bed nightly on an empty stomach. Only when people can feed themselves rather than depend on food aid, will hunger significantly decrease or even be eradicated. Food aid is merely a short-term solution, albeit a vital one, to a long-term crisis.

When the UN called for an emergency $755 million infusion of food aid funding in the spring to combat soaring food prices, Canada responded quickly and generously with a $50 million contribution on top of the $180 million already allocated for this purpose. At the same time, the federal government “untied” food aid, meaning that recipient countries no longer had to spend 50 per cent of their aid money purchasing food from Canada. Untying food aid means the recipients spend less on transportation, receive the food more quickly and can, theoretically, purchase more of it locally.

We congratulate Ottawa for these timely measures, but much more is required to avoid a repeat food crisis in the future. Canada needs to invest more in agricultural development aid so that emerging nations can grow more of their own food and eventually feed their own people.

We have identified a number of programs that will deliver results in both the short and long term. In the short term, we need to provide seeds, fertilizer, animal feed and basic farming tools. Fertilizer costs, particularly, have skyrocketed because of increases in oil prices that, although they have subsided recently, in the long run will only keep going up.

A longer-term solution involves establishing micro-credit cooperatives and agricultural training, an area of considerable Canadian expertise. Subsistence farmers need further instruction and support in crop diversification and sustainable agricultural techniques.

Canada can also show leadership in improving the lot of smallholder farms by pushing for the reform of multilateral trade agreements and food and agricultural institutions. Of the world’s three billion rural people, more than two-thirds live on small farms of less than two hectares. They are the key to making their countries more food self-sufficient.

Recently the Canadian government said it would contribute to long-term measures to stimulate world food production and increase investment in agriculture.  Our newly elected government needs to turn those words into action. We need the government to invest in agriculture and adequate food and nutrition. This requires a long-term strategy and a boost in funding to $500 million a year.

We believe that Canadians expect this kind of leadership. The fact that World Vision Canada has more than 600,000 supporters attests to our generosity as a nation and a desire to see global hunger addressed.

The situation facing smallholder farms is more challenging than ever. On World Food Day, we recognize that we cannot make inroads fighting disease, inequality and poverty without supporting sustainable rural development. If we provide this support, think of the children’s lives that can be saved.

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