By Timi Gerson, Director of Advocacy of American Jewish World Service. Cross-posted on Food Forever – The AJWS Food Justice Blog.
African countries aren’t spending enough on agriculture, IRIN reported last week. And that’s a bad thing:
“Spending money on food production is critical in Africa, where 70 percent of people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for food and income. There are also going to be more people to feed in Africa in the next few decades. Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is expected to grow faster than elsewhere by 2050, increasing by 910 million people, or 108 percent.”
Cross-posted on From the Ground–the blog of American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
In Mogadishu, store shelves are full of food but the bellies of civilians are not. An article in IRN today reported that the Somali government has asked the UN World Food Programme (WFP) to release food stocks in Mogadishu for distribution to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who are chronically hungry.
Cross-posted on From the Ground–the blog of American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
Years of conflict and instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have taken quite a toll on the national population, particularly on nutrition. Experts believe the basic structural causes of malnutrition have been aggravated by high food prices and the global financial crisis which has shaken the mining industry in the west and southeast of the country. A recent IRIN article reports that half a million children and more than a million women in the DRC are in urgent need of nutritional support.
Cross-posted on From the Ground—the blog of American Jewish World Service (AJWS).
“Kitchen gardens in Kenya” is not a phrase we hear often, but for many people, that phrase is the key to survival. In a country of nearly 35 million people, malnutrition and hunger are staggering problems, particularly for Kenyan children, orphans and people living with HIV/AIDS. In the rural, western regions of Kenya, sustaining basic nutrition is a chronic struggle in the face of food insecurity. Too weak to walk long distances or stand in lines waiting for food aid, those who live in rural areas and subsist on less than a dollar a day do not have access to the basics needed to live healthy, dignified lives.
Today’s New York Times features several letters to the editor in response to “Experts Worry About Feeding the World as Its Population Grows,” an article published on October 22. The letter writers call attention to several issues: the political realities that perpetuate global food insecurity; the relationship between access to contraception and reduced food demand; and a desire for integrated farming strategies that combine conventional farming practices with agro-ecological approaches. What the letters do not include, however, are examples of grassroots organizations that are implementing many of the creative solutions the authors are seeking.
What if you knew that the organic vanilla that you were using in your recipe was not only kosher, but was grown by farmers who would not, under any circumstances, work in their gardens, harvest their trees or deliver their crop from 18 minutes before sundown on Friday until tzeit hakochavim (the appearance of three stars in the sky) on Saturday—with the same applying to all Jewish Festivals.
What if you knew that these farmers live in the deepest regions of sub-Saharan East Africa in the area Mbale, Uganda, and that their farming cooperative consisted of Jewish, Muslim and Christian members called Peace Kawomera?
What if you knew that these farmers were being paid two and a half times the fair trade price for their beans, because a volunteer organization run by a hazzan (cantor) in Los Angeles removes the middle-man and makes every attempt to allow the farmer to receive the most that he/she can?
What if you knew that this organization, Uniting Jewish Communities and Products, UJCP, is attempting to do this for as many communities as possible throughout the world, helping them become self sufficient, providing clothes, housing, health care and education.
Cross-posted at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and at davka.org
The prophet Isaiah asks (58:6-7):
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? when you see the naked, that you cover them, and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh?
If we are to “loose the fetters of wickedness”, what might our fasting have to do with Darfur?
Mark Bittman’s recent call to eat more sustainable fish included the instruction to eat more herring, a fish that is near and dear to Ashkenazic cuisine. What would kiddush in synagogue be without plates of this tasty, flavorful fish? Well, maybe herring is a little too flavorful–while I love herring, I find that many younger Jews find it too strong or fishy tasting. For those whose taste buds were raised on bland farmer salmon or other milder fish, herring seems to only be on the menu if you eat it at a trendy Scandanavian restaurant.
But there is hope for the herring-skeptic. I first had this delicious herring salad in London, at the Shabbat table of a cousin from South Africa. In my family, while we eat it all year, it has become an important part of our Yom Kippur break-fast. The sweetness of the pineapple and the acid in the mayonnaise are a wonderful balance to the full-flavored herring. The matjes herring is wonderfully delicate, and is a good introduction to herring for those who are used to tart, briny fish pieces from a jar.
Check out the recipe after the jump!
