planet earth looks blue

There is a ray of hope in the dark blanket of hunger that envelops nearly a billion people in the world today.  That means that just under one of six people are starving; starving meaning they actually have physical pain from their lack of food, and are therefore unable to do much to alleviate their situation being weak and malnourished in the first place.  According to a fact sheet put out by the Think Quest Library, every year 15 million children die of hunger.  The funny thing is, we have plenty of food in the world to feed everybody.  Its not that starvation is necessary.  The fact is that many people don’t have access to food.  They don’t have fertile land to farm, or they don’t have work, or are unable to work.  There are many possible solutions, but they take more of a commitment then donating money to a government.  Many times this ends up in wasted trickle down economics, where the poor never see much assistance, if any.  Secretary of State Clinton made a pledge this week to work for the world’s poor, as many world leaders have done before.  

But real results have been found in a science laboratory.   A team, headed by University of California-Davis Professor, Pamela Ronald, used genetics to make a strain of rice that can stand up to flooding.  At least half of the world uses rice as a daily staple in their diet, and in countries such as India and Bangladesh, rice makes up two-thirds of the overall diet.  But because of an increase in flooding over the past several years due to rising sea levels and more erratic weather patters - two factors that are predicted to only get worse in the future - many rice crops have failed.  It is estimated that four million tons were lost in 2008 alone.  The rice found by Ronald can stand being submerged in water for up to 17 days.  In every other way it is the same as the rice farmers were already growing, in taste, and nutritional value.  

The work done by the rice scientists will save many lives in the years to come.  It is an example to all the policy makers out there who are trying to fight world hunger, they’d be a lot more productive creating solutions to something concrete, rather than combating something abstract.  Words, as beautiful as they can sound, aren’t going to put food on anyone’s plate.