Our
Human Responsibility - Practical
Solutions to World Hunger
By Paul Turner (January 1999)
Director of Food for Life Global
 According
to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one billion people
in
the world live in poverty today. Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef:
The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Industry, comments: "Increased
poverty has meant increased malnutrition. On the African continent,
nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished. In Latin America,
nearly one out of every eight people goes to bed hungry each night.
In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation,
experiencing the gnawing pain of perpetual hunger. In the Near East,
one in ten people are underfed."
In North Korea, floods
and drought have destroyed much of the nation's crops and severely
weakened the country's food security.
As a result, "There are 11-year-old school children in hospitals,
so thin, their growth so stunted, that they look like five-year-olds,” explained
Erich Weingartner of the World Food program (WFP). In addition, people
in the most severe situations are still eating "grass, bark, and
seaweed." The problem is exacerbated by lack of an adequate supply
of pure water. Some aid agencies estimate that as many as 3.5
million people have died in the famine.
In Somalia, a United Nations report states
that a majority of the rural population has already exhausted food supplies
and
is presently limited to eating one scanty meal a day. Families
are the hardest hit, as they cannot afford to buy food to
meet their nutritional needs. "Most children and women are
thin and suffering from moderate or severe anemia," the
report explained. "The already precarious food supply
will continue to deteriorate, leading to a dramatic increase
in malnutrition for hundreds of thousands of Somalis over the
months to come," said Burke Oberle, WFP representative
for Somalia. World hunger is a grave problem; we have
shown just a glimpse of this escalating human tragedy. The
compelling truth is this:
never before in human history has such a large percentage of
our species—nearly 20 percent—been malnourished.
Each year, between 40 million and 60 million people around the
world die from hunger and related diseases. Sadly, the toll is
heaviest on the world's children.
Malnutrition
 In
his forward to UNICEF's 1998 "State of the World's Children" report,
Secretary General Kofi Anan spells out a simple but most unassailable
truth: "Sound nutrition can change children's lives, improve
their physical and mental development, protect their health,
and lay a firm foundation for future productivity.”
Over 200 million children under the age
of five in developing countries are malnourished. For them,
and for the world at large,
Kofi Anan’s message is especially urgent. Malnutrition
contributes to more than half of the nearly 12 million deaths
of children under five in developing countries each year, and
malnourished children who survive often lose precious mental
capacity.
The report goes on to explain that 30 years ago, the idea that
specific nutrients could help treat specific diseases smacked
of “fringe science.” Today, however, through clinical
trials and studies, the fringe is edging closer to the mainstream,
and malnutrition’s link to the poor growth of children
and adolescents, low-birthweight babies, and a child's capacity
to resist illness has been established scientifically. "It
is thus reasonable to argue," the report states, "that
in the global fight to reduce childhood death and illness,
initiatives to improve nutrition may be as powerful and important
as, for example, immunization programs."
The
right to good nutrition
 However far reaching
the benefits of nutrition may be from a clinical viewpoint,
ensuring good nutrition is also a matter of international law.
The right to proper nutrition is most emphatically proclaimed
in the UN's 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Under
the Convention, virtually every government in the world recognizes
the right of all children to the highest attainable standard
of health, specifically including the right to good nutrition.
Under the Convention's pre-eminent guiding principle, good child
nutrition is a right because it is in the "best interests
of the child." Article 24 of the Convention specifies that
States must take "appropriate measures" to reduce infant
and child mortality, and to combat disease and malnutrition through
the use of technology and the provision of adequate, nutritious
foods and safe drinking water. In this light, every human being
on the planet is responsible for alleviating child malnutrition,
based on international law, scientific knowledge, practical experience,
and basic human morality.
Hunger
in a world of plenty  The theme for the large
international gathering at the United Nations World
Food Summit in Rome in 1996 was "Hunger in a world
of plenty." United Nations representatives and
non-government organizations (NGOs) from around the
world met to discuss ways to solve this global crisis,
which continues to escalate and challenge the conscience
and sustainability of humankind in the 21st century.
The meeting's secretary general, Dr. Kay Killingsworth,
explained that the problem was not insufficient food
production but inequitable distribution. "The
result is that the food does not reach the needy." (See: A
change in diets may be necessary to enable developing countries
to feed their people, say scientists.
Guardian UK John Vidal, Aug 23,2004)
Making
our lives expressions of our spirit
 John
Robbins, author of the best selling Diet for a New America,
writes: "The existence of so much hunger in the world
is a reality we cannot deny. It is a reality that challenges
us deeply: it asks us to become more fully human." Robbins
argues that the world hunger problem is not only the responsibility
of the United Nations, but of every human being on the planet. "When
we remember those who are without food," says Robbins, "something
is awakened within us. Our own deeper hungers come to surface—our
hungers to live fully, to bring our lives into alignment with
our compassion, to make our lives expressions of our spirits."
Greed
not scarcity
 The Vedic scriptures
of India provide us with some insight into the nature of compassion
and spirituality: "Everything animate or inanimate that
is within the universe is controlled and owned by the Lord.
One should therefore accept only those things necessary for
himself, which are set aside as his quota, and one should not
accept other things, knowing well to whom they belong."
By
divine arrangement, Mother Nature supplies the needs of all
living entities. Overcome with insatiable greed, however,
modern society blindly pillages the earth of valuable resources,
and
thus robs billions of people in developing countries of their
God-given quota of food.
This statement is clearly
corroborated by the fact that more than one-third of all grain
produced in the world is being
fed to cattle and other livestock. It appears, therefore,
that the
solution to world hunger lies beyond the boundaries of expensive
and exhausting humanitarian solutions at the root issue:
individuals and nations must honestly acknowledge, and then
end, their
selfish gluttony.
A
worldwide mission to feed and educate
  Food
for Life initially focused on India, attending
to flood victims in West Bengal. ISKCON Food Relief, as it
was
known then, received praise and assistance from CARE, Red Cross,
and other international relief agencies for its efforts to
save the lives of thousands. In the late 1970s, the program
spread to the West.
In 1974, Srila Prabhupada, the founder,
proclaimed to his yoga students that no one should go hungry
within a ten-mile radius of a temple.
Since that time, more than 150 million free vegan and vegetarian
meals have been served to the needy on six continents. Food for
Life has emerged as the largest vegan/vegetarian food relief
program in the world! Food for Life's mission—to
bring about a peaceful and prosperous world through the liberal
distribution of sanctified vegetarian food—is thus advanced
through a twofold strategy:
 1. Feeding
programs
Food for Life operates feeding programs through the following
distribution channels.
•
Free food restaurants
•
Budget restaurants
•
Emergency relief
•
Home delivery services (meals on wheels)
•
Shelters (homeless, single women and men)
•
School and college feeding programs
•
Temple distribution
•
Cultural/religious festivals.
Food
for Life currently operates feeding programs through all of
the above distribution channels.
2. Spiritual education
• Book distribution
• Interfaith meetings
• Networking with other faith groups
• Media relations
• Spiritual publications
 Food
for Life is a spiritually conceived organization with the vision
that the world's problems will be solved, ultimately, by spiritual
solutions. Specifically regarding world hunger, Food for Life
maintains that when the people of the world recognize the spiritual
equality of all beings, they will learn to share equally in the
bounty of the earth, and only then will they experience genuine
peace and prosperity. Until that happens, Food for Life will
provide as many free prasadam meals as possible to the needy
of the world.
Equal
vision
 In
its efforts to eradicate world hunger, Food for Life trains
its volunteers to be selfless, humble, compassionate, equipoised,
and broad minded enough to understand the needs and concerns
of the world they live in. In fact, Food for Life volunteers
often risk their own lives to help those in need. Throughout
the fighting in Grozny, Chechnya, for example, Food for Life
volunteers cooked and served hot vegetarian meals to desperate
civilians in the
war-torn
city. More than one million meals
were served during the 20-month conflict. New York Times correspondent
Michael Specter visited the Krishna devotees at their kitchen
in Chechnya and wrote of them, "…here they have
a reputation like the one mother Teresa has in Calcutta: it's
not hard finding someone to swear they are saints."
These volunteers showed tolerance and compassion
above and beyond the call of duty, demonstrating true equanimity
and a deep understanding
of their human responsibility. The jewel of India's
spiritual wisdom, the Bhagavad-gita describes
equanimity as a natural expression of one's spiritual wisdom.
Sama darshinah or "equal vision" is what separates
the truly wise person from the mundane.
Food for Life believes that food, so
central to the survival of every culture on earth, holds
the key to real peace and prosperity.
What better way to express that understanding than by educating
people on the value of spiritual equality and selfless sharing
of karma-free food?
How
can the vegan/vegetarian community contribute to solving
world hunger?  Since malnutrition
is the devastating result of world hunger, along with
providing the practical solution of feeding the needy,
vegans and vegetarians can effect change by educating
people on the value of plant-based nutrition. The following
outline suggests opportunities for action, based again
on a twofold strategy.
Vegan/vegetarian
movement's twofold action strategy
1. Feeding programs
• Budget vegan restaurants
• Home delivery services (meals on wheels)
• Shelters (homeless, single women and men)
• School and college vegetarian clubs
• Financial support
These practical measures are very similar to some
of those offered by Food for Life. Contributing financial support
to
vegan/vegetarian
relief agencies is another possible response to the problem
of world hunger.
 The
practical strategies outlined above are very similar to Food
for Life's, with the exception of free restaurants, emergency
relief, and temple distribution. Offering financial support
to vegan/vegetarian relief agencies is also another practical
action one could take.
2. Nutrition education
• UNICEF
• World Food Program (WFP)
• Networking with relief agencies
• Networking with church groups
• Media relations
• Government publications
• Education Department
• Health Department
One educational
strategy might be to present all of the above organizations and
publics with professionally packaged kits containing the latest
information on scientific studies supporting a plant-based diet.
Consistency and accuracy are essential to the relevance and success
of any information distribution program. The International Vegetarian
Union (IVU) is well positioned to take up this responsibility,
to provide the leadership for this effort, and to ensure the
effectiveness and integrity of the information program.
Conclusion
We at Food for Life strongly believe
that it is the responsibility of every human being on the planet
to take action to eradicate malnutrition, which is killing upwards
of 12 million children every year. This position, long held by
many leading vegetarians, was confirmed by the United Nations
1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 1974, Food
for Life has been committed to the practical response of establishing
feeding programs in more than 60 countries throughout the world.
However, our resources are very limited; sadly, we are losing
the race against world hunger. We therefore call out in earnest
to the vegan and vegetarian communities around the world to accept
this human responsibility. Stop philosophizing and pointing fingers.
Be brave—take practical action today! Establish feeding
programs in your area, and make concerted efforts to educate
the public about the global benefits of a plant-based diet. The
children of the developing world are depending on you.
Thank
you very much.
Paul
Turner
Global Director
January 7, 1999
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