pistolettes you're in touch with what's happening in the world in terms of the food situation. I think Gotham times as many of us get behind on just what the situation is for instance there. Maybe some of us who believe that there's a real problem in India because we've heard about that for so many years. But in fact India is getting itself back on its feet in terms of food production. Where are the problems right now in the world in terms of hunger while there are still problems even in India for people who cannot afford to buy food because there's great poverty in India. India has a surplus of food back to India has been making some food Aid loans available to Vietnam recently. But that doesn't mean there's no longer any hunger in India. It simply means that the effective market demand for food is being Satisfied by what is being produced and we are no longer sending food Aid to India from the United States, but there's still a poverty problem in most of the southern hemisphere the third world the developing nations all of them have within their countries people who are too poor to buy food. They're not in a cash economy and they either grow their own food is the traditional pattern subsistence agriculture or they don't eat are they don't eat well undernourished. There are still about a half billion one and eight of the world's people who are chronically undernourished. It doesn't mean they're starving today. It means they're starving over a lifetime. They're they're going to die earlier than they should in their lives are going to be less fulfilled than they could be. the immediate problems in terms of famine sword or real food shortfalls and production are in parts of Africa, especially the sahil region again, which was a major problem area for about six years of drought in the late sixties early seventies. The the problem is coming back there. That's the reason just below the Sahara where there has been a substantial amount of overgrazing with herds people who were nomadic and the land just can't bear the kind of grazing that they're doing with their cattle are efforts being made to get them to settle down and start the farm but that's very difficult. Cuz that disrupts our whole culture parts of Latin America are having problems and there are still problems in parts of parts of Asia, but it's true that overall world food production in the last three years has been It's been going faster than world population, but there are still hungry people. As you say is one of the main reasons that people are hungry and undernourished in the world is simply that they can buy food. And for many of us, I think that there has been a real Paradox in the way. We view the world. We see American farmers producing bumper crops not getting anything for their their product and having their government tell them to cut back acreage while there are people in the world who are undernourished and it's it seems like a very cruel Paradox. I wonder if you could comment on that. Is there is it something in the system the world food growing and marketing system that is a problem. Is it to its people don't have the means to buy the food? I would say it's something in the world system not so much of food production in marketing as as the basic economic system in the world, which doesn't adequately reward the low-income countries for what they have to sell to the high-income countries. It's basically a trade Arrangement between the first and the third world the Western Nations and the developing nations. Most of which were former colonies of the western Nations. The second world are socialist world isn't very much involved in this world trade patterns, certainly not in terms of food, although they Russia and China Dubai food from the west by a lot of food in United States. I think the long run solution has to be of a Readjustment in the World Trade arrangements so that the people who produce cocoa or copper or or 10 or bananas or coffee to sell to the rich Market Rich World Market get a better price for what they have to sell then if they want to buy food cereal grains particularly from the United States and Canada or wherever they'll be better able to do. So, it's it's really a question of of the gap between rich and poor and a gap which continues to grow now the American Farmer is in the strange position of being in a rich World economy, but producing a raw material not a manufactured good if you produce a manufactured good a car or a or a Sony television, you set the price and that's the price you ask what it cost you to produce it if you're producing raw material and that's basically true anywhere in the world. You take the price that the international market gives you and you are very Little control over that in the fluctuates so that the American Farmer is very much in the position of the third world countries. They they all the third world countries basically rely for export earnings on raw materials either mind or agricultural products and they can't control the price the American Farmer can't either and so the American food producer is is producing a raw material doesn't benefit from the processing of it, which others make money from the same way for the third world countries. They basically don't benefit except they sell the raw material to processors in other parts of the world. They don't even benefit from shipping it because the shipping lines are owned by Rich countries, which countries corporations And they see others getting rich from their raw material and they feel they feel they're being taken advantage of and there's some truth in that so when I talked with our farm people about the third world country situation is producers of raw materials with prices that are in indefinite uncertain from year to year Farmers know immediately what you're talking about cuz they the same situation. Let's talk a little bit about what the church is work is in this area. What does the church do and what do you want to see it to in the future while the church does most of the churches in the United States and certainly true of hours do about three kinds of sex with regard to hunger one is the traditional long-standing effort to help feed people overseas people understand that it used to be called relief work or you shipped either government provided a door actually purchased food that the agencies purchase with their own resources to people who are hungry overseas often in famine Scituate. Things are natural disasters Like An Earthquake. Lutheran World relief Church World Service Catholic relief services Etc Church related agencies have done that kind of work for many years increasingly. The agencies do not do relief work. They do development work, which means they use resources given by their members to help people to grow more of their own food in Brazil in Bangladeshi in Tanzania. Typically, it means helping the poorest of the poor on the farmers. Not the big farmers, but the peasants With Water Conservancy projects with storage facilities for grain with Farm to Market roads with credit arrangements with seeds with whatever is needed extension service. What we know in the United States has the county agent Agricultural Extension work. A lot of that is just being established in third world countries and much of it is being done with the assistance of the International Development agencies, the non-governmental agencies church and otherwise, so that kind of thing is is continuing and really getting larger and the direct relief or food Aid is getting smaller as I think it should the problem with food at is Anywhere vast amounts of grain shift into many countries of the world in the last 15 years from the US government. Partly to relieve our Surplus situation. That was one of the motivations in the legislation. The problem with food aid for the recipient is it creates a kind of dependency? It becomes a serious disincentive to their own agriculture with their Farmers if there's cheap food coming in from outside. It depresses the market and it also has lulled some Nations some governments into thinking they don't have to make agriculture priority in their development planning because there was always food a to depend on that's becoming recognized by both the recipient and the donor Nations and soul food at is is way down. I think that's healthy. I don't think food age should be used for the long-term. It should be used for emergency relief purposes. And that's it. And they say that if you get Beyond about three months of food Aid and emergency situation you're in trouble of creating a dependency situation that means up a question that I came across and one of our national news magazines, I believe it was Newsweek the day did a story on the situation Guatemala and the tremendous amount of relief that came from all of the world, but particularly US based organizations like a church World Service and they made the point as you have that sometimes Aid and humanitarian help does not always do what it was intended to do. They said that there was a flood of food in that area that really destroyed the domestic agricultural program because Farmers could not sell the green Guatemalan Farmers could not sell their grand and so they had no proceeds from that Year's crop. How do you say we're becoming more aware of the fact that we have to be a bit more sophisticated and then why we help people what are some of the problems that you run into when when you have a situation like Guatemala? Why did this a lot of grain and and relief occur there? Well, it appears I think primarily because they're it when they're whenever there's an emergency the headlines and the Nightly News on television pick that up and make a big thing of it and people want to respond to I do something so they send their contributions to their favorite development agency. Earmarking it for Guatemala and the agencies are just swamped with more than they can really put to good use some of the agency's try to find a way of getting all of that in the Guatemala and the agencies don't really coordinate with one another as well as they could some of them do work together the mainline denominations agencies tend to coordinate with each other but there a lot of independent agencies church, and otherwise the simply run their own operation and don't coordinate with the others. So there is really a problem when there's an emergency and decisions have to be made very quickly with a national government with which may not know really how to handle the depth of the problem. They have with International governmental structures like the United Nations with private development agencies from many countries in the North Atlantic particularly and with government agencies from those same parts of the world all of that working together to try to respond within 24 hours and a lack of coordination. I think the other problem is. Some of the agencies use the headlines in the crisis mentality that is abroad to raise money. Does people are minded to respond when they see a problem they want to do something and some of the agency's abuse that it's fairly easy to raise money when there's when there's an earthquake in Guatemala and they're starving baby pictures that you can show it's much harder to raise money for the Long Haul chronic malnutrition problem or the problem. We talked about earlier of the that the changes that have to come in the world economic order so that the rich-poor Gap begins to close that's much more complicated to interpret two people. So the Temptation is simply to show pictures of starving children and ask people to give I understand that Temptation. I think it is irresponsible not to try to do the depth analysis of what's really going on in the world because in fact while they're always natural disasters floods and famines and earthquakes. The basic food problem for the world is not a result of that. It's a result of long-term structural problems that keep the poor poor and and that has to be changed somehow and it's very complicated and difficult to change it the church agencies that are that are the responsible ones. I would say are trying to interpret that to their people and trying to give attention to long-term development efforts with the money that the people give what's the result of for you as a person who's involved in raising money for our needs and other needs of people around the world when the church becomes identified with political struggles. It seems to me that people are becoming a little more tight-fisted with their money. They want to know exactly where it's going and what it's doing. They don't necessarily trust Charities as they might have at one time in the past. What so what do you see as you go around the country trying to raise money Well, first of all, I don't do a lot of fundraising directly. I interpret how the money is used. But we haven't been beating the drum loudly to raise money people simply want to give and there's a in our church is a special hunger appeal which gives them an opportunity to give for Hunger over and above what they do in their normal support of the church's Mission. I think the question though about the growing skepticism what one of those folks in Minneapolis or New York or Geneva doing with my money, that's a healthy thing. I think the day of people simply giving to a trusted agency and having confidence that they'll do the right thing. That's that day is over and that's good because it means people are more. They want to follow their money. They're more involved with what happens to it. Now the political question that is implicit in that I think there's a growing sophistication among church people and all people in this country that if you really want to make change if you really want to help hungry people. It isn't enough and sometimes it's precisely wrong to Simply send them food. That may be the very worst thing to do. If you really want to help hungry people you probably have to change structures and systems and that means getting political. There's an organization called bread for the world, which is a citizen's Lobby of church people whose only real purpose is to influence legislation in the US government US Congress. That is a Lobby that is political but it's a hunger combating organization. It does not raise money to send food to people doesn't raise money to send development assistance overseas. It has members who work together to try to influence legislation that affects hunger and poverty in the world and in the US. No, I think while some church people are still. Thinking that you can separate charity from politics. There are others who are seeing that the real need is Justice and to do justice or the create more just structures. You need to get political. That's what politics means politics is the way of trying to Fashion a relatively more just situation and it's true not only it within the us but in the relationships between nations, that's what the real game is all about these days and for the rest of the century at least thank you very much Charles. Let's who's the coordinator for the world hunger program of the American Lutheran Church. This is John. It's t