World Food Day

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
Oct. 8, 2004

WORLD FOOD DAY

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join people from more than 150 nations in celebrating October 16 as World Food Day.

World Food Day brings much-needed attention to hunger and malnutrition around the world. Inadequate nutrition is an unremitting global health threat. Over 840 million people in the world are hungry, including more than 300 million children.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has worked for 59 years to help both developed and developing nations create their own sustainable food supply.

Because of the organization's achievements, many people who did not know where their next meal would come from can now live healthy and productive lives. Workers from the Food and Agriculture Organization have assisted farmers in Swaziland with growing new crops to combat problems of hypertension and sugar diabetes. They have offered alternatives to more than 2000 poor coca farmers in Bolivia, helping to curb the production of cocaine. Recently, the organization approved $400,000 in emergency relief funding for Caribbean countries devastated by this year's hurricanes.

The Food and Agriculture Organization is not alone in its effort to fight hunger. Last month, the Senate Hunger Caucus, which I cochair with Senators DOLE, LINCOLN, and SMITH, met with Ambassador George McGovern and the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, Jim Morris, to discuss international hunger. We know it is possible to feed the hungry and improve the lives of millions of impoverished people around the globe. An additional $13 billion each year, for instance, could meet the most basic health and nutritional needs of the world's poorest people. It is a modest amount compared to the 25,000 lives lost to hunger each day.

Several years ago, Ambassador McGovern and the former Senator Bob Dole called for an international school feeding program. They recognized that we can fight hunger among children in the world's poorest countries while also sending them to school. This idea, which became the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program, is one of the single best policy ideas I have ever heard. We know that poor children and families often do not have enough food to eat. We also know that poor children are less likely to go to school. But, by providing food as an incentive to attend school, we are able to provide fuel for the bodies and minds of these children.

I am pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee accepted my request to increase funding for the McGovern-Dole program to $100 million in the fiscal year 2005 Agriculture Appropriations bill. It is a simple step toward ending an epidemic that leaves children with bloated stomachs, emaciated faces, and underdeveloped minds-an image that I will never forget after seeing the devastation first hand in some of these developing nations.

As we celebrate World Food Day and the progress of the Food and Agriculture Organization and other groups on the front lines in the battle against hunger, let us remember the substantial work that remains. I hope this day will spur us on to achieve the vision of a time when abundant food is available to every human being. I look forward to working with other members of the Senate Hunger Caucus toward that goal.