The Global Food Crisis

For those of you who received my email and have committed to pray and fast, or those who are still thinking about it, I am going to provide some more information over the next couple of days to prepare our hearts for what exactly we are praying about. This information comes from the Compassion website:

What is the global food crisis?
The World Food Programme calls the global food crisis a phenomenon, a "silent tsunami," that is affecting families in every nation on every continent. Food prices for popular menu items like rice, wheat and beans have doubled in the last year. Though increases in food prices have hit all budgets, it's the poor who bear the brunt of price inflation. The higher prices are forcing people who survive on just $1 a day to spend upwards of 80 percent of their budgets just on food. As a result, many people, including millions of children, are going hungry. The longer food prices rise, the more people will be plunged into hunger and poverty.

Why is the global food crisis happening?
Food shortages have affected developing countries for generations. It's a cyclical problem. But this global food crisis is more rapid, urgent and devastating. Since 2005, food prices have risen a whopping 80 percent.
Why?
1. rising fuel costs
2. rising food demand from populous nations like India and China
3. natural disasters destroying crop yields all over the world, including the United States
4. growth of biofuels

Tomorrow I will post more about how the food crisis impacts Compassion children. Until then here is a verse to meditate on:

Joel 2:12 "Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning."