Wall Street Woes Extend to the Table (Photo: 4simpsons.files.wordpress.com)
By Alan King
AFRO Staff Writer
(October 26, 2008) – While the world’s attention has been focused on rescuing investment banks and stock markets from collapse, the global food crisis has worsened, with countries scrambling to protect themselves.
The comparatively modest response to soaring food prices by Western authorities – in contrast to their rapid-fire reaction to the financial crisis – has triggered anger among aid and farming groups, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
Oxfam, the British-based aid group, estimates that 199 million people have fallen below the poverty line this year as a result economic chaos. That’s in addition to the 923 million people the U.N Food and Agricultural Organization estimates were undernourished in 2007.
Stephen Muchiri, a farmer in Nairobi and head of the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation, told the Washington Post: “The amount of money used for the bailouts in the U.S. and Europe – people here are saying that money is enough to feed the poor in Africa for the next three years.”