wfn.org | Church World Service urges local agriculture, micronutrients as priorities

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World Food Day: Church World Service urges local agriculture, micronutrients as priorities

NEW YORK CITY, Oct. 14, 2008­ This year's international World  Food
Day finds both the developed nations and the globe's poorest battling
climate change punishments to agriculture, on top of being mired in a
world food crisis now further drained by an international financial
meltdown not experienced since the Great Depression.

International development and relief organization Church World Service
is calling for concerted and urgent action by world bodies, governments
and aid agencies to attack hunger, malnutrition and the continued toll
of high food prices in a direct and cost-conscious approach that deals
at the same time with immediate crises and long-term, sustainable food
security levels.

The New York-based organization is urging two immediate points of
focus:

* Bolstering the climate change-adapted local agriculture capacities
of poor farmers

* Immediately expanding the provision of micronutrient supplements
and so-called ready to use food products (RUFs), to arrest the growing
rate of malnutrition among some 178 million small children worldwideâ? ?
20 million of whom are severely malnourished

"There are no magic bullets to the food crisis. Complex causes require
multiple solutions," says Church World Service Executive Director and
CEO Rev. John L. McCullough. "But now, more than ever, we must
prioritize keenly.

"The most urgent of these priorities is malnutrition among urban and
rural poor, among refugees, among small children. Malnutrition can be
addressed quickly, realistically and in a manner that's economically
advantageous," he said.

"It's not just about 'more food,' it's about better quality food,
better nutrition," said McCullough.
"The most immediate and direct solutions are to expand the provision of
nutrition-rich ready to use foods (RUFs) and supplements to combat
malnutrition, coupled with more livelihood and agriculture programs that
help poor rural farmers successfully grow nutritionally diverse crops
even in the face of climate adversity."

The United Nations is focusing this year's World Food Day on the
challenges of climate change. From temperate to tropical and arid
regions, agriculture is strained by climate change stresses. The toll on
food stores­ and, ultimately, human health and nutrition­ ?? is
devastating for rural farmers in developing countries, who are
historically at deficit even for farming tools.

With some training and few provisions, "grow locally, sell locally, buy
locally" takes on greater, measurable and repeatable meaning for the
poorest in poor countries, says CWS' McCullough.

"This is basic economics for governments in developing countries as
well as aid suppliers," said McCullough. "If you don't have to import
food aid, you don't have to pay transportation costs."
In the past year, the lower price of the dollar has significantly
affected food aid programs by the World Food Program and by U.S.-based
non-governmental organizations.

"The role of non-governmental organizations is even more vital now,"
McCullough said. "Those organizations are now shouldering a lot of the
responsibility for the experiments, research and innovative but
inexpensive agriculture techniques that even the poorest farmers can
apply in erratic climate conditions. The international and country NGOS
are in the best position to increase that work in the future," he said.

McCullough said the world must continue to turn to the United Nations
and other world bodies for longer-term strategies on food security and
basic nutrition, but, "By dint of size alone, they work too slowly to
get these things done in the short term."

CWS supports sustainable agriculture programs and training in Africa,
Latin America, Asia and Central Europe that share soil conservat
ion and
composting techniques, water conservation and flood mitigation measures,
and provision of open-pollinated seed stocks adapted to climate-stressed
regions and which, in turn, provide seeds­ for free­ for or next
season's planting.

In Nicaragua, CWS assists communities, including indigenous farmers,
who are generating new food security despite increasing droughts,
through training, crop diversification, improved livestock management,
long-term soil improvements, capturing rainwater for irrigation,
micro-basin management techniques, energy-efficient stoves that reduce
the use of firewood, and seeds best suited to the region.

Malnutrition: the rapid paybacks of micronutrients

CWS also is stressing the rapid paybacks and economies of micronutrient
supplementation for both children and adults, to combat existing
malnutrition and prevent further deficits. The majority of the world's
178 million malnourished children live in just 36 countries. A third of
the world's population suffers from micronutrient deficiencies,
especially children, a situation now aggravated by the current food
crisis.

For small children who are moderately malnourished, multivitamin and
mineral powders and ready to use foods (RUFs) effectively provide
micronutrients such as iron, zinc and Vitamin A, which are necessary for
healthy body-mind development in infants and toddlers as well as for
ongoing health in youths and adults.

Says CWS' McCullough, "For small children six months to age two, to
give them a proper start in life, it costs only about $125 per child for
nutrition-delivering supplements. "Individual, daily dose-sized
'sachets' of micronutrient powders are particularly helpful for
moderately malnourished small children. They cost about [U.S.] three
cents each and are added to foods the children already eat. It's a food
aid bargain," he said.

In Indonesia, CWS is working in partnership with the H. J. Heinz
Company Foundation to provide Heinz Vitalita ? brand multivitamin  and
mineral supplement powders in regions of the country recently identified
where infants and toddlers are experiencing critically high malnutrition
rates.

"It's not only about saving small children now. It's about preventing a
lost generation. Far better returns than the stock market's offering
right now," he said.

> Reaping food security, not the whirlwind

While CWS is urging governments, the United Nations and private lenders
together to commit more money to rural farming programs, the agency is
similarly urging renewed focus on livelihoods training to help the urban
poor generate incomes so they can afford to buy food that's increasingly
out of reach.

"Rapid expansion of those programs can provide families a measure of
security," says McCullough, "as they continue to reap the whirlwind of
rising food prices and runaway biofuel agriculture where it is taking
the place of food crop production."

> ###

Media Contacts

Lesley Crosson, (212) 870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin - 24/7 - (781) 925-1526, jdragin@gis.net