World Food Crisis Creating 4 Million New Hungry People A Week

June 15, 2009 (LPAC)—The United Nations World Food Program's (WFP) decision to cut food aid rations and to shut down some operations is going to create 2 billion more hungry people this year. At a meeting of the Group of 8's development ministers, Josette Sheeran, the food programs executive director, said the world faced a human catastrophe. "This year, we are clocking in, on average, four million new hungry people a week urgently hungry."

The UN agency also suspended food distribution to 600,000 people in northern Uganda as the result of its lack of funding, and has reduced its operations in Ethiopia and North Korea. It is also on the verge of cutting rations to 3.5m drought victims in Kenya.

WFP points out the cut in its budget, and failing to meet the needs of the hungry, stems from the fact that the donor countries, in the midst of a global economic collapse, are facing spiraling fiscal deficits at home. These donors have told the WFP to scale back its reach, while the agency is facing extra calls from countries seeking food aid as the economic crisis brings unemployment and a drop in remittances. Meanwhile, food prices continue to rise. The cost of food commodities such as corn and soybean has surged this week to levels not seen since the start of the food crisis in late 2007.

As a result, WFP has quietly started to reduce rations and close down distribution operations to conserve cash. It reduced emergency food aid rations in Rwanda, for example, from 420 grams to 320g of cereals per person per day.