WASHINGTON – July 3 – With the G8 Summit set to begin in Japan on July 7, Bread for the World today urged the leaders of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful countries to scale up their response to the global hunger crisis.

With the United States as the leading food aid donor, President Bush should use the G8 Summit as an opportunity to convince other countries to urgently increase their response to the hunger crisis now gripping the world.  Bread for the World applauds the objectives the president outlined in his statement yesterday, including ramping up shipments of food, fertilizers and seeds to countries in need, and sharing advanced agricultural technologies to help the world’s poorest farmers become  more self-sustaining over the long term.

“Now the president and the G8 need to move from talk to action. The world’s response has not been commensurate to the extent of the crisis,” said Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World.  “G8 leaders have the wealth and the power to stop this hunger crisis from spreading further and affecting the lives of the majority of the world’s poorest one billion people. We hope the president will follow up his stated goals with bold, assertive action.”

Rev. Beckmann stressed that the global hunger crisis must be on top of the agenda for the leaders of the G8 countries next week. “Poor people in developing countries now spend most of their income on a basic grain such as wheat, rice or corn, and the cost of these dietary staples has more than doubled since 2006.” 

The world’s governments must move quickly to reform their ways of delivering food aid. For example, more than half of the U.S. food aid budget is consumed by administrative and transportation expenses.

Continuing farm subsidies by the United States and the European Union are also worsening the world hunger crisis.  “Because of the uneven trade environment subsidies create, developing world farmers cannot compete with U.S. and European farmers. As a result, hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people are being driven deeper into misery,” Rev. Beckmann said.  “This is another view we share with the president, and we urge him to present it as one of his top priorities at the G8 Summit.  In addition to market-distorting farm subsidies, export restrictions, tariffs and other barriers to free trade and investment around the world must be torn down.” 

The decline in investments in agriculture, especially in the developing world, is another contributing factor.   “The U.S. and other G8 countries must ramp up their support for agricultural development, particularly in Africa.  It is the key to long-term relief from hunger,” Rev. Beckmann added. 

Bread for the World supports a proposal to the G8 for a broad nutrition initiative as another way to combat the global hunger crisis.  According to a recent series in The Lancet on nutrition, experts advised that hunger alleviation programs should focus on babies and nursing mothers to get the maximum effect.  They also pointed out that reducing hunger among children will have the biggest effect in reducing overall global death rates. 

Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad. www.bread.org

CONTACT: Bread for the World
Bill Malone 202-464-8180
bmalone@bread.org