Continuing Food Crisis Plagues World's Poorest

By John Rivera

Over the last year, a number of factors aligned to cause a dramatic spike in the price of food. Poor people, particularly those living in urban areas, suffered the most. In some places, drought compounded the situation. The hardships triggered riots in cities in several nations.

Catholic Relief Services responded by getting cash, food and food vouchers into the hands of the urban and rural poor, enabling them to feed themselves and their families. We provided opportunities for people in hurricane- and cyclone-prone regions to participate in cash-for-work projects that helped their communities prepare for and better withstand disasters.

CRS also increased its investment in small-scale agriculture, especially in the production of staple crops. We helped farmers obtain fertilizer to maximize their yields and connect to markets where they could receive a fair price for their crops. Using public, private and foundation funds, CRS launched or expanded upon several agricultural initiatives, including programs seeking to increase production of rice in West Africa, navy beans in Ethiopia, chickpeas in Tanzania and cassava across Africa.

And CRS continued its partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development's Food For Peace program, bringing food aid to those most in need and supporting programs that foster long-term development.

Although food and fuel prices have fallen recently, the global food crisis is not yet over. We are now confronted with an environment of price volatility and uncertainty. Although commodity prices have fallen in international markets, they remain high in many places in the developing world.

The food crisis has exposed the vulnerability of many countries that have depended on cheap food imports from abroad to feed their people. Investing in agriculture and supporting society's most vulnerable people is a long-term strategy for CRS that will continue well into the future.

Priority Projects

• Afghanistan: Paying workers to construct water systems for crop irrigation. Food prices took a toll on households in the north and west of the country, which last winter faced some of the harshest weather in 30 years. This water system will have an immediate impact, increasing crop yields that will feed more people.
• Ethiopia: Buying food for the urban poor, to be distributed by the Missionaries of Charity. The food crisis hit the urban areas of Ethiopia particularly hard. The Missionaries of Charity sisters saw a major increase in demand for their support. This funding paid for additional food, particularly for children and nursing mothers, and provided support for therapeutic feeding centers to treat the most malnourished, principally children.
• Indonesia: Distributing food baskets for poor families in the slums of Jakarta. The Catholic Archdiocese of Jakarta distributed food baskets containing rice, cooking oil, sugar and mung beans to the poorest families it serves, who live in fishing villages and garbage dumps in the city.
• Guatemala: Supporting people living with HIV. People living with HIV have been given the gift of life through antiretroviral drugs. But the drug therapy's effectiveness depends on patients' access to adequate nutrition. This funding helped approximately 1,000 people living with HIV to improve their health and adhere to their treatment by providing additional food and subsidizing the cost of transportation from their communities to the hospital for their monthly medical appointments.
• Burkina Faso: Providing seeds and fertilizer to increase rice production. CRS provided rice farmers with fertilizer and better seed varieties to increase production and farmers' incomes. CRS and our partners are also supporting farmers in marketing their rice.
• Moldova: Distributing food to assist flood victims. CRS and Caritas Moldova carried out an emergency response to aid victims of the worst flooding in decades, which left thousands of people homeless. Hundreds of towns and villages in Moldova were without water or electricity. This exacerbated the hardship in an area that was already dealing with sharp increases in the price of food.

John Rivera is a senior writer for Catholic Relief Services. He works at the Baltimore headquarters.