I fast on Yom Kippur and have done so every year of my life. As I grew older, I learned from the passage of Isaiah that we read on that day, that the act of fasting and spiritual repentance is meaningless unless it’s accompanied by moral actions in the world. We are not being asked to …
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We’ve been posting a lot recently about escalating food prices in the developing world. Here’s yet another report from Reuters: “Rice prices will likely tick higher on the back of fresh demand from Indonesia and Sri Lanka, but gains will be nowhere near as dramatic as 2008 thanks to ample supplies from top exporters Thailand and …
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When I think about international food aid, what comes to mind are the challenges of distribution—who’s getting what and how much of it? But then there are the hidden costs of shipping. A recent IRIN article discusses the results of a Cornell University study that revealed the alarming fact that U.S. taxpayers spend about $140 …
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Today’s heart-breaking New York Times story about Haiti’s orphans is a painful reminder of the earthquake’s enduring devastation. The article offers a harrowing portrait of Daphne, a 14-year-old girl who watched her mother’s mangled body get carted away in a wheelbarrow from a shattered marketplace. Daphne then lived in a makeshift orphanage founded by Frades—a …
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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 …
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