Welcome to World Veg Council
Do you know how many people are starving to death as you are reading this article? They say that a person dies from hunger every 3.6 seconds. So even if you are a fast reader, it is quite likely that at least 10 people would have died from hunger before you reach the last full stop. Should you stop reading? Ignorance might be bliss but it won’t change the fact that hunger is a world-wide killer.
According to reports by the World Health Organization, hunger is the most dangerous enemy to health. Every year six million children die because they don’t have food. About 14% of the world’s hungriest people live in India. Those are pretty indigestible facts but facts they are.
And yet, this is 21st Century! Is this the price of process and development? The end result of all our knowledge and technology? Let us look at this world wide phenomena and try to understand what is happening. And then perhaps we could see what should be happening. The exact figures keep changing, locations keep changing, expanding or shrinking, some of the cause changes some of the effects changes… but hunger has been with us for a long time. So when in 2008 and again in 2013 people are taking about a global food crisis, one is tempted to say ‘what’s new?’ But nevertheless, it is important to look at what it means when we say the global food crisis and how it affects food security. Is there anything that the ordinary everyday citizen can do about it?
Food security basically means that there is enough food, that everyone has access to it and that it is used in a way that not only satisfies hunger but also meets nutritional requirements that allow proper growth, development and good health. This is a basic human right. Shouldn’t every human being on this planet be entitled to that?
The reality is very different. Hunger feasts on our planet, consuming health, hope and happiness.