“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” – Indira Gandhi
“The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will
be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known.
Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world
on the day of that great revolution.” – Federico Garcia Lorca, Spanish poet and dramatist, 1889-1936
On June 13, 1942, in his “Four Freedoms” radio address, Franklin D. Roosevelt read a prayer that included:
“Our earth is but a small star in the great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory. Grant us that courage and foreseeing to begin this task today that our children and our children’s children may be proud of the name of man.”
At his 1961 inaugural address, John F. Kennedy stated:
“To those peoples in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required…”
1977, the National Academy of Sciences’ Study on Food and Nutrition, involving some 1,500 scientists, made this statement:
“If there is the political will in this country and abroad… It should be possible to overcome the worst aspects of widespread hunger and malnutrition within one generation.”
1980, the Presidential Commission On World Hunger concluded that:
“Each major cause of hunger could be averted or overcome if the human community were to act cooperatively and decisively.
“Conversely, the persistence of hunger reflects a lack of sufficient political will to eliminate its causes. If decisions and actions well within the capability of nations and people working together were implemented, it would be possible to eliminate the worst aspects of hunger and malnutrition by the year 2000.”
1980, the Brandt Commission, in a two-year study involving representatives of 17 rich and poor countries, concluded:
“Mankind has never before had such ample technical and financial resources for coping with hunger and poverty. The immense task can be tackled once the necessary collective will is mobilized. What is necessary can be done, and must be done.”
Recently issued Unicef report states:
“By the year 2000 the number of infant deaths in low-income countries could be reduced to 50 per 1,000 or less…. [this] goal is realistic in the sense that the principal obstacle standing in the way of [its] realization is the absence of the will and commitment to achieve [it].
The conservative American organization, the Heritage Foundation, has written:
“Hunger is man’s oldest enemy. There is now the scientific knowledge and the institutional arrangement that makes it possible to overcome hunger, not only within the United States but throughout the world. This can be done within the lifetime of people now living, if there is the political will to do so.”
1981, 52 Nobel laureates issued “The Manifesto Against Hunger.” They said:
“We must refute the false idea of reality that accepts as inevitable what is in fact a result of present politics; in other words, of organized chaos.
“Each and every one of us must support measures to save the living.
“If only people are told what is happening, then the world’s dark future, which now seems to threaten everyone ln it, may be changed.
“But only if we take action.
“Now is the time to act, now is the time to create, now is the time for us to live in a way that will give life to others.”
From: http://www.thp.org