World Food Day

Today is World Food Day. It is a day not only to remember that there are 800 million hungry people in the world -- more than the total populations of the United States, Canada and western Europe -- but to resolve to try to do something to help.

I note that the United States, which is the major donor of food aid, has cut the amount of grain provided in that aid in half since 2000. The Bush administration has other priorities!

Food aid is tough to use well. Too often in the past it has been used as a means to subsidize farmers in this country while undermining farmers in developing nations by giving the consumers in their markets free food. It can also be appropriated by the wrong people and used for evil ends.

But it can be very useful, making up for shortfalls in food production due to floods or droughts, supporting people in emergencies such as the one occurring in Darfur, or as compensation for subsistence farmers diverted from their farming for useful projects such as road construction or soil conservation,