World Hunger and Poverty

Someone sent me a notification about a report about biotech crops by the ISAAA (The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications). According to the report, biotech crops have experienced remarkable growth over the last dozen years. The report also points out some socioeconomic benefits of biotech crops, namely the ability of poor or struggling farmers to increase their income by growing more crops for less costs.

From what I know, scientists use biotechnology with agriculture to genetically engineer crops to increase the yield of the crops.

Some people believe that biotechnology can help reduce world hunger by producing more food to feed the hungry. However, for the most part, I do not believe that because the world already has enough food to feed anyone.

Nonetheless, the ISAAA report points out that poor farmers can increase their production and reduce their costs with biotech crops. That does make sense. The farmers that use biotech crops can make more money with them, and that will help alleviate poverty when poor farmers use the technology to increase their income.

I always feel skeptical of newly powerful technology because I do not think humankind has achieved the required social responsibility to make it safe to posses the power of technology. Large amounts of individuals will each choose to adopt a new technology that helps each of them personally in the short term, but the combined use of the technology could have devastating effects on society as a whole. For example, consider the pollution and deaths caused by automobiles, or the threat of the technology of nuclear bombs.

Technology can help greatly when used wisely with the proper social responsibility, but it can cause devastation and self-destruction when not combined with wisdom and social responsibility.

Wisdom and social responsibility come about most of all from knowledge and a well-informed public. For that reason, I appreciate that the ISAAA provides information and reports about crop biotechnology. In fact, their website has a knowledge center, in which they say, “we believe that a transparent, science-based debate is essential for maximizing the potential benefits of crop biotechnology…”

I agree.

What do you think? How do you feel about crop biotechnology? Post your answers to that and your comments on this post in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums. We welcome all viewpoints.

I just read an interesting article about Bono addressing the World Economic Forum alongside Gore.

While I appreciate all the work Bono does in regards to poverty, he strikes me as somewhat of a self-serving phony who cares more about his own wealth and fame than actually solving problem of global poverty. But I have not studied the man enough, so I say that speculatively.

Nonetheless, he said something with which I agree and want to quote:

“The planet is in a precarious place right now and extreme poverty affects a billion people who are living on less than a dollar a day, scrambling for their life. We have a great life in the West. If we want it to continue we have to feel our interconnectedness with the people who are living on less than a dollar a day.” ~Bono

To me, it seems especially important now to recognize the interconnectedness of the people of this world considering the current rockiness of the U.S. economy. The rest of the world fears a global economic crisis if the U.S. economy falters. Because the whole world economically depends on the United States, the United States has no room to falter.

In other words, by economically dominating the world, the United States has it made it so that when its own economy falters nobody will have the economic strength to subsidize the United States. Since the rest of the world depends on the United States, the United States has nobody on which it can depend.

If the United States economy goes into a massive recession and it throws the average U.S. resident into poverty, then I think the West will realize how much better off it would have been if it had eliminated poverty and created a world that does not tolerate poverty.

It’s great to be the strongest in a lot of ways, but who will protect you when you lose your strength if you never helped others gain strength?

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

We as a world need to understand our interconnectedness, and we need to build a better world for all by solving problems such as world hunger, poverty, and global warming.

What do you think about poverty, the global community, and the current economic problems in the United States? Post your comments and responses in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

I just read an unfortunate story from the UK press. According to the article, nearly 2 million people in the UK retiring before April 2010 could face poverty.

They face poverty because they do not qualify for full basic state pensions. To qualify, men currently need to have made “national insurance contributions” for 44 years, while women need to have made 39 years.

The government has decided to reduce the qualification to 30 years, but that reduction does not take effect until April 6, 2010.

Regardless, I do not see how a person can work 29 hard years, all the while having some of their money put into national insurance, and then get thrown under the bus when retirement time comes.

To fully end poverty, we need to make sure that everyone has a secure retirement. To that end, we must include the full costs of securing one’s retirement in the cost of living.

The nationwide Community Action Network has suggested 5 themes and strategies that local communities can use to alleviate poverty. Essentially, they advised:

• Get everyone involved.
• Build an economy that works for everyone.
• Put money into healthcare and education.
• Maximize opportunities for people.
• Eliminate false stereotypes such as the myth that poor people are lazy.

Generally, I agree with those 5 points. Of course, we have to figure out how to get local communities to implement such strategies.

A UK news report has revealed that about half of disabled people in the country live in poverty.

I find that statistic sad but not surprising. Disabled people have more trouble finding work. Even when they do find a job, they will have trouble finding one that pays enough. Additionally, disabled people have a large amount of extra expenses for medical bills, social care, and equipment such as wheelchairs or hearing aids.

The problem of disabled people’s poverty may seem tough to fix because many disabled people physically cannot take care of themselves and their expenses. If they cannot work, they cannot earn an income to support themselves. As a result, it may seem like only charity can keep disabled people out of poverty.

Charity can help, but we can solve the problem without relying on charity. We can stop disabled from falling into poverty by ensuring that all people have enough insurance to cover all the problems involved. This includes unemployment insurance, medical insurance, and secured retirement.

Insurance makes it so that all the clients voluntarily pool their money together. When any of the clients meets hardship (in this case becoming disabled), the insurance company takes care of that person. People voluntarily choose to pay a little money they can afford to eliminate the risk of having to more money than they can afford.

By using insurance to neutralize risk, society can end disabled people’s poverty without charity in a non-governmental way.

What do you think? Discuss this blog post and disabled people’s poverty in general in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

I have decided to post some poverty-related news stories from around the world.

A group of economists have criticized the government of Indonesia for failing to reduce the number of people living in poverty in the country despite general economic improvement for the country as a whole. 105.3 million people in Indonesia live in poverty out of the country’s total population of 236.4 million. While it may seem odd that a country’s economy can improve without decreasing the number of people in poverty, I find that it often happens like that because gains in the economy usually correlate with increased inequality. As the rich get very richer, the poor get poorer. And the “average” income still goes up because the rich make more money than the poor lose.

The mayor-elect of Salt Lake City, Ralph Becker, says that he will work to reduce poverty in the city during his term. That pledge apparently came after a coalition of community and faith groups challenged Becker to reduce poverty.

A program director from the University of Oklahoma has decided to hire two researchers to investigate how public schools can reduce poverty. Even without extensive studies, I think most of us can see how grade schools impact poverty. Hopefully, society will start using schools to break the poverty cycle. Personally, I think private schools have much more potential than public schools, but poor children would need to receive some sort of large voucher or loan to attend private school.

You can discuss the above stories and post your own stories in my World Hunger and Poverty Forums. We need to discuss these major problems together so that we can come up with agreeable solutions.

I have added a page to this blog with a list of local volunteer groups. The list will contain the names and contact information of the organizers of local volunteer groups. Since I just made it, it currently only lists me and my group.

If you already have a volunteer group, please send me the information for it so that I can add it to the list. Otherwise, please consider organizing a local volunteer group. If you have any questions about organizing a local volunteer group, I made a thread to discuss it: Organizing A Local Volunteer Group

Each one of us only lives in one local community. The success of the war on poverty depends on local organizers. Please consider organizing a local volunteer group. You could probably do it easier than you think. And us organizers can all use the internet to share information, tips, and ideas.

I simply want to say that I hope all of you have had a great holiday season so far whether you celebrate Christmas or not. Also, I hope you have many more happy holidays in the future.

We can relax for now, but after this holiday season I want to expand this blog’s purpose to organize more direct, hands-on activism. I want to both create a very active local group in my local community and I want to use this blog to help organize a network with other local organizers. However, I will talk about that more in the beginning of the New Year.

Speaking of the New Year, if you want to read something, check out the blog post I made last New Year’s Day: We Need a New Era

Thanks!

I just read an interesting blog post by Philip Brewer about the fatness of poor people. In the post, Brewer points out the seeming irony of poor people’s tendency for fatness and obesity. He cites some of the common explanations given for that phenomenon, but he ultimately blames it on hunger. He explains that poor people overeat because the human body still feels hungry until it gets the nutrition it needs, and poor people tend to eat unhealthily because unhealthy food tends to cost less than healthier food.

Brewer offers the solution of eating healthy on a budget by cooking “real food” at home. To paraphrase, he says that people need to stop buying things that have a list of ingredients and instead buy actual ingredients.

Unfortunately, many poor people probably do not have the time or knowledge to cook healthy food. Instead they will succumb to the likes of the dollar menu at McDonald’s. Also, poor children have to rely on their parents who may not cook for them.

I recommend that anti-poverty organizations take steps to help poor people eat healthier. They can even do this simply by distributing helpful information to poor people. Also, I think as a society we can use the schools to ensure that children have access to healthy food. I would like to see schools offer more healthy choices to children. I would also like to see the schools create more breakfast programs. In fact, the schools could also open their cafeterias after-school for an early dinner.

I just read a great article by Michael Chu about the relationship of profit and poverty. In the article, he specifies four criteria that any poverty-intervention-method must fulfill.

Firstly, he mentions scale. This means that a method must work on a global scale. We obviously cannot use methods that can only work on small scales to end poverty. I think, when small, local groups try to think up new ways and systems for fighting poverty, they need to consider the scalability of the method. In other words, they need to ask themselves if the method would work as effectively on larger scales.

Secondly, Chu mentions the need for permanence in any attempts at poverty relief. As I often say on this blog, we need to not only provide temporary relief for the symptoms of poverty, but we also need to help poor people permanently escape poverty, and we need to counter the causes of poverty.

Thirdly, Chu says that poverty relief methods need continuous efficacy, meaning that they must get better and better as time goes on. While that would obviously help, I do not think of it as necessary, since a fully effective method needs no more improvement.

Finally, Chu points out the need for continuous efficiency in poverty relief methods. This means that the method will continually become cheaper and cheaper in terms of money and/or labor. Chu also seems to point out that a profitable method will lead to more and more organizations joining the industry to compete for the profit. That competition and variety will lead to more efficiency.

In my mind, efficiency works hand-in-hand with scalability. As the anti-poverty method becomes cheaper, we can get more done with the same amount of money and labor. The more profitable the method becomes, the more money we can reinvest in the method. Thus, by making an efficient and profitable method of relieving poverty, we can continue to increase the scale of the method.

I think many anti-poverty organizations make the mistake of not utilizing profitable ways to relieve poverty. As a result, their funding limits how much they can help. However, by using a profitable method, they would not run out of funds, and they would actually gain more funding both from their profits and from profit-seeking investors.

Loans have greatly worked to help people escape and avoid poverty. Microfinance loans have helped millions of poor people in the third-world escape poverty. In developed nations, I personally think student loans can work the best because they enable people to obtain quality education and job training, which those people can then use to get a quality job that pays them enough to pay off the student loans while also supporting themselves.

You can post your comments about this blog post and discuss the general topic in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.