World Food Day
Today is World Food Day, an annual event to raise awareness of and action to alleviate worldwide hunger. This is certainly an important year for it. We are in the middle of a food crisis, and some say the dire situation is being eclipsed by the financial crisis.
This from a Reuters story today:
"'The media have highlighted the financial crisis at the expense of the food crisis,' said Jacques Diouf, head of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome."
And this:
"Proponents of more urgent measures questioned why the world's richest nations could not show the same urgency to save people from starvation as they did when rushing to rescue banks.
"'My position is that the financial crisis is a serious one, and deserves urgent attention and focus, but so is the question of hunger, and millions (are) likely to die. Is that any less urgent?,' asked former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan."
The BBC, meanwhile, has commissioned a poll that shows 60 percent of respondents -- from 26 nations -- are feeling the burden of rising food and energy costs. (The poll was conducted between July 8 and Sept. 15, before the recent drop in fuel prices.)
Click here to hear people from around the world talking about food prices.
Contributors
Sheryl Julian, the Globe's Food Editor, writes regularly for the Food section.Devra First is the Globe's food reporter and restaurant critic. Her reviews appear weekly in the Food section.
Ellen Bhang reviews Cheap Eats restaurants for the Globe and writes about wine.