Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Hunger: alternatives

Since I spent yesterday's post talking about not giving food away, what are our alternatives? I mentioned food for work programs, but there are other choices:
  • fund programs to improve genetics and techniques in local agriculture
  • improve transportation infrastructure from farms to hungry people
  • decrease post-harvest losses with improved storage facilities
  • increase local industry (this improves wages, which increases the amount people can spend on food)
There's something you might notice about these: they mostly involve giving money! As I've mentioned before, most governments would prefer to give food because it makes money for their farmers and agro-allied industries. The truth is, though, money is much more useful. I don't think people will pick this up and run with it. After all, it costs more, doesn't it?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

What about digging wells, Providing education and health care aid, etc.