Reuters reports that the UN’s World Food Programme has resumed food aid to Bhutanese refugees in Nepal, a month after withdrawing rations due to financial difficulties stemming from the global financial crisis. The shortage of aid available caused food assistance to be halved by the World Food Program in October.

Approximately 90,000 refugees of ethnic Nepali origin have settled in UN refugee camps in southeast Nepal since the early 1990s, having fled from discrimination and human rights violations.  Equally troubling, the refugees have no legal rights to employment or property in Nepal, making them almost entirely dependent on food aid.  Bhutan has refused to repatriate the refugees, and a series of talks that have strained relations between itself and Nepal.

Tens of thousands of refugees will be on the receiving end of said rations, thanks to Australian assistance.  Australia has contributed $460,000 to resume the program.

The Wall Street Journal reports the Ethiopian appeal for massive amounts of foreign aid, as a severe drought in the country puts the East African nation on the border of a potentially drastic humanitarian crisis concerning low levels of food and water. Paul Lomas, Oxfam International’s regional director for East Africa, states that this is the worst drought striking the country in ten years.

Compounding the current situation are the still relatively high prices of food from a prior increase last year, in addition to insufficient amounts of investment in agriculture and a lack of crisis preparation for the impending crisis.

Mitiku Kassa, Minister of Disaster risk management and food security in Ethiopia, states the number of Ethiopians needing food aid increased to 6.2 million from 4.9 million earlier this year — out of Ethiopia’s total population of 83 million.

Mr. Kassa requested a total of $175 million in aid, including more than 160,000 tons of food as well as nonfood assistance such as health and sanitation support and help for agriculture and livestock.

The threat of famine in Ethiopia looms large because most Ethiopians depend on the land for their food and livelihood and the government is expecting another weak harvest due to the lack of rain.

The prolonged crises in the region have stretched the budgets of aid agencies already.  Oxfam has already issued an emergency appeal for $15 million to help with the situation in East Africa.  The World Food Program also has said it is short on funding this year.

October 16th is World Food Day, an opportunity for education and action on food issues, both globally and locally.  Throughout the past year, the Global Food Crisis blog has posted about a variety of issues including the security, availability, safety, trade and organizations that deal with food.  We invite you to mark World Food Day by learning information about global food issues and how you can take action.

UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf made a call to action, stating that, “The world food security governance system is inefficient and not well coordinated to address the present food crisis and the new challenges which we will have to face in the future.” Visit FAO’s World Food Day page to learn how you can get involved.

World Food Programme Executive Director Josette Sheeran states that “‘World Food Day’ is ‘No Food Day’ for almost one out of every six people around the world this year.”  WFP also offers “10 Things You Can do on World Food Day.”

Read U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s World Food Day statement and link to the State Department’s Food Security page.

A new edition of the annual The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009 report was  released jointly today by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP).  Subtitled “Economic Crises - Impact and lessons learned,” the report looks at the convergence of the recent global food crisis that hit the world from 2006-2008 and the global economic crisis that began in late 2007 and continues to affect financial markets as well as global food supplies today.

FAO estimates that due to the crisis, over 1.02 billion people were hungry in 2009 around the world.

To examine the “impact” of the crises. the report offers cases studies of Armenia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Zambia  in order to show how the global economic crisis (which unlike other crises that affected one country or a region) affected all global markets, particularly impacting developing countries.

In presenting the “lessons learned,” the report recommends short-term solutions such as food safety-net programs to fight hunger and poverty.  Long-term solutions include increased development aid, expertise sharing and new domestic policies to help the most vulnerable countries provide food more consistently and readily for their people.

Natural phenomena are causing severe conditions in many countries around the world, causing and in some cases, exacerbating, food shortages that are affecting large populations.

The BBC reports that in Guatemala, President Alvaro Colom has sprung into action, declaring a “state of public calamity” and seeking to aid 54,000 Guatemalans whose access to food has been diminished by the effects of harsh weather on crops.  The World Food Programme is already assisting those in dire need and President Colom is opening up public funding for those affected to purchase food.

In Mexico, severe drought during the traditional “wet season,” suspected to be driven by atmospheric changes from “El Niño,” have hampered growing of corn, beans, barley and sorghum, as well as raising livestock.  According to the Los Angeles Times,

Farmers and officials say the impact, including lost earnings, unpaid debts and shortages of staple foods, could be felt well into next year.

‘Although no one wants to recognize it, there is a food crisis,’ said Cruz Lopez Aguilar, president of a national federation representing rural dwellers. He and others say increasing imports to make up for lost crops could raise food costs.

Mexican officials downplay the severity, saying lost production can be offset during the fall growing cycle, when crops are irrigated and rely less on direct rainfall. A federal government insurance program is meant to cover farmers affected by drought.

The monsoon cycle which typically irrigates India’s rice crops have appeared late this year, plunging half of India into drought and reducing crop forecasts by 20%.  The Indian government has reacted with a “stimulus package” to give farmers money for “short duration” crops, which can still take advantage of the late monsoon.

In a region where food supplies are already curtailed by conflict, East Africa has also suffered from sparse rainfall, causing drought that has affected Somalia and Kenya. According to the Toronto Star, “…7.5 million people [in Somalia]  need humanitarian aid and one in five children is malnourished.”  In Kenya, which has “suffered at least three consecutive droughts,” staple crops such as maize…are expected to shrink by 28 per cent from the yearly average.”

A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the U.S. is overpaying for the purchasing and delivery of food aid that it donates to those in need, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.  Despite being the largest overall donor of food aid, the practice of buying food products from U.S. farmers and shipping them overseas on American ships costs the U.S. more and delays aid deliveries.

The practice of the U.S. government subsidizing U.S. farms by buying surplus food products for aid has been criticized in the past for keeping global food prices artificially low and preventing farmers in developing countries from earning enough from their crops to avoid poverty.

Some of the findings in the GAO report included:

• Food aid purchased and shipped from the U.S. cost 29% to 34% more than if procured locally
• International in-kind food aid deliveries averaged between 106 and 112 days longer to deliver than locally produced food aid
• Local food procurement faces the dangers of being hampered by inefficient suppliers, poorer food standards, weak logistics and poor infrastructure

The report concludes with the call to make changes to current policy,

“the timely provision of food aid is critical in responding to humanitarian emergencies and food crises, and LRP [Local and Regional Procurement] has the potential to better meet the needs of hungry people by providing food aid in both a more timely and less costly manner. To fully realize this potential,however, challenges to its effective implementation must be addressed.”

Among some of the challenges that need to be addressed, the report recommended,

• A gradual shift by the U.S. from exclusively offering internationally grown food aid to supporting locally grown food
• Increasing food “market intelligence” to assist developing countries with gauging food prices and keeping locally grown crops competitive
• Clarify the U.S. laws pertaining to food aid so that U.S. agencies dealing with food aid would be able to support LRP

A Kansas City Star article points out that any change in the policies on food aid purchases and shipping would fall under the responsibility of the House of Representative’s committees on agriculture and transportation.

The Obama administration is seeking $200 million in emergency aid for Pakistani refugees who have fled the Swat Valley region during a military campaign to oust Pakistani Taliban.  In the areas cleared of the Taliban by the Pakistani military; shortages of power, water, food and medical supplies have raised the concern of the U.S. government, which earlier pledged an additional $130 million in humanitarian aid in the past month.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has stated that its $543 million plan to provide food aid alone has only received 22% of that amount, so far, and that a dire situation for Swat Valley refugees will emerge very quickly.  U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has called upon European and Muslim nations to increase their contributions, and prepare to fund a reconstruction of the Swat Valley to prevent a reemergence of the Taliban once the military campaign concludes.

Is it possible to make a difference in the fight against global hunger from your computer?  Organizations that are dedicated to fighting hunger work approach this challenge in many ways, and must dedicate a great deal of time and resources to raising funds to support their programs.

The United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) for example, created a web site called Free Rice, which has a win-win approach to fighting global hunger.  Rather than simply asking users to donate money, the site offers a variety of games that test users abilities in English, geography, chemistry, art, foreign languages and math.  When a user answers a question correctly, they earn 10 grains of rice for the World Food Programme to use in fighting hunger.  How does this work?  According to the Free Rice website:

The rice [donated to WFP] is paid for by the sponsors whose names you see on the bottom of your screen when you enter a correct answer. These sponsors support both learning (free education for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

So visitors to the site raise money for WFP just by playing (win), the sponsoring companies fund the game and gain visibility (win), and WFP acquires more support for their mission (win).

The dramatic rescue of the Maersk Alabama’s captain Richard Phillips brought relief that his hostage crisis was resolved, but the dangers of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean continue.  Somali pirates have not been slowed by the Maersk Alabama incident, continuing to regularly hijack ships to make money by ransoming the ship, crew and/or cargo.

On Tuesday, the Liberty Sun, flying an American flag and on its way to delivering food aid to Kenya for the World Food Programme (WFP), escaped an attack by Somali pirates.

The two recent attacks on U.S. ships were cited by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when announcing a stepped up commitment by the U.S. to combat piracy.  The World Food Programme explained on its website that piracy cannot deter its mission of providing aid in vulnerable East African countries:

“If food assistance cannot arrive through Mombasa for Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, southern Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, millions of people will go hungry and the already high malnutrition rates will rise.”

The Sea Horse, a Lebanese ship that was also carrying food for WFP, was hijacked on its way to delivering food aid to Somalia.  WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon said, “WFP is also extremely concerned that people in Somalia will go hungry unless the Sea Horse is quickly released or a replacement ship can be found.”

While the French navy succeeded in detaining a pirate “mother ship” on Wednesday, the pirates’ large area of operation is so far making it difficult to secure all transport routes in the area.

The danger of delivering food aid in unstable regions or conflict zones was further illustrated by yesterday’s hijacking of a U.S. cargo ship by Somali pirates.  The Maersk Alabama was delivering food supplies to East African countries for several aid organizations:

“‘The vessel’s manifest showed it was carrying 401 containers of food aid from USAID, Serving God Ministries, the World Food Program and Catholic Relief’, said John F. Reinhart, president and CEO of Maersk Line Ltd.”

The attack does not seem to have been targeted against American interests specifically, in fact, it is one of an escalating number of pirate attacks that have taken place in the last year in the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.  These waterways are key transit points for ships traveling from Europe to Africa and Asia through the Suez Canal.

Crew members were able to fight off the pirates forcing them to take one of the Maersk’s captain as the only hostage, in one of the Maersk’s lifeboats.  The U.S. Navy ship USS Bainbridge is on the scene, along with FBI negotiators, in an attempt to secure the release of Captain Richard Phillips.

The Maersk Alabama has been sent on its way, with its cargo, but has been rerouted to deliver food aid to Sudan.