The real food crisis

As Americans most of us are lucky to have food on our plates and disposable income left over to do with as we please. However, this isn’t the case in many places around the world where hunger and starvation are the reality. It amazes me that while obsessing about our own food choices (organic, natural etc.) is very in style, advocating for feeding the hungry around the world has somehow fallen out of fashion.

A recent Foreign Policy article titled “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers - Stop obsessing about arugula. Your ‘sustainable’ mantra -- organic, local, and slow -- is no recipe for saving the world's hungry millions” addresses this topic.

The article is written by Robert Paarlberg, B.F. Johnson professor of political science at Wellesley College, an associate at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and author of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Here is one quote that spoke to me in particular:

“If we are going to get serious about solving global hunger, we need to de-romanticize our view of preindustrial food and farming. And that means learning to appreciate the modern, science-intensive, and highly capitalized agricultural system we've developed in the West. Without it, our food would be more expensive and less safe. In other words, a lot like the hunger-plagued rest of the world.”

Click here to read the whole article.