David April 14th, 2008
Back in March, I had commented briefly about the rising costs of wheat and other commodities. From CNN this afternoon (April 14, 2008), it looks like that trend isn’t getting better any time soon.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty…
"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice … now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."
The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said — meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.
As an LDS Church member, I have been encouraged to prepare for these types of crises. I have been doing what I believe is most important for my family, but there is so much more that seems to be left undone. It is sad to see how this can affect the poor of the world so directly. There are a whole host of things that we can do to alleviate the pain and suffering of those less fortunate as ourselves.
I have noted a number of attempts that people have made to help alleviate problems such as these. Some of the most effective I have seen have revolved around the LDS Church Welfare programs to distribute food to those needing it immediately after disasters and educating others on how to be more self reliant (such as digging wells and burying water lines to villages in Africa).
A few years ago, my wife and I started using the Square Foot Gardening program for ourselves and have been impressed with how well it works for our own needs. SFG has formed a non-profit foundation to educate the poor around the world to help them provide food for their own families. They continue to look for volunteers willing to help educate the poor in how to raise their own produce.
Do you remember the old saying “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” ? We believe that the same can be accomplished by teaching a person to garden in a simple easy way that they can do, like the Square Foot Gardening method.
Even SFG techniques are the tip of the iceberg in permaculture (sustainable agriculture) options. Since the 1970s, researchers have been investigating how we can design systems which replenish each other. I did my own research a few years ago by building a small "chicken tractor" (movable chicken coop), multiple compost bins (for mulch and manure), and incorporating Native American gardening techniques such as "Three Sisters." It was a neat experience and one that I would be happy to share with others.
There is a whole host of common sense technologies and techniques that have been lost in the last few generations where we as a people haven’t needed to learn how to produce our own food in sustainable ways. But by harnessing the knowledge of experts and sharing that information over the internet, we can recapture some of this knowledge and share it with those that need it the most. (Too bad the 90% of the world that can’t afford a computer with internet access can’t directly learn from this information.)
