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Across Africa, the worst food crisis since 1985 looms for 50 million
Guardian UK ^ | 22 May 2016 | John Vidal

Posted on 05/22/2016 8:50:55 AM PDT by Lorianne

Harvest should be the time for celebrations, weddings and full bellies in southern Malawi. But Christopher Witimani, Lilian Matafle and their seven children and four grandchildren had nothing to celebrate last week as they picked their meagre maize crop.

Last year’s drought, followed by erratic rains, hit the village of Nkhotakota hard. But this year the rains never came and, for a second year running, the family grain store is empty. If they manage their savings carefully and eat just one small meal a day, they may just have enough food for two more months.

By August, said Irish charity Concern Worldwide, they and tens of thousands of other small farmers in southern Malawi will have completely run out of food, with no prospect of another harvest for at least seven months. With nothing to sell and no chance of earning money, Witimani, Matafle and family will starve.

“I am worried the children will starve to death. I don’t know what to do,” said Matafle.

“We need food. We are in a desperate situation,” her husband added.

Countries are just waking up to the most serious global food crisis of the last 25 years. Caused by the strongest El Niño weather event since 1982, droughts and heatwaves have ravaged much of India, Latin America and parts of south-east Asia. the last of the large-scale famines affecting many millions, donor countries have been slow to pledge funds or support. More than $650m and 7.9m tonnes of food are needed immediately, says the UN. By Christmas, the situation will have become severe.

(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: communist; culturefail; famine; malawi; unsustainable
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Sigh. Droughts, yes. They always are an issue. But you plan for them by having surplus food. Just planting enough to get you to the next harvest is not sustainable.
1 posted on 05/22/2016 8:50:55 AM PDT by Lorianne
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To: Lorianne

The problem is foreign aid.


2 posted on 05/22/2016 8:52:44 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: Lorianne

What do you call a Somalian with a chicken? A vegetarian.
What do you call a Somalian with two chickens? A rancher.


3 posted on 05/22/2016 8:53:46 AM PDT by sparklite2 ( "The white man is the Jew of Liberal Fascism." -Jonah Goldberg)
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To: Lorianne

Heck, I’ve seen families around here just browse for meals at the convenience store.


4 posted on 05/22/2016 8:54:41 AM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: gaijin

And here come the pleas for increasing immigration from these countries.


5 posted on 05/22/2016 8:54:59 AM PDT by skams19
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To: gaijin

Warlords and kleptocrats who steal the foreign aid to feed their armies and regime rather than going to the people.


6 posted on 05/22/2016 8:55:25 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist (MAGA! Make America Great Again)
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To: Lorianne

“Just planting enough to get you to the next harvest is not sustainable. “

There used to be a meme showing empty bread shelves on the left and full shelves on the right. The caption read, “In socialism people wait on bread. In capitalism bread waits on people.” There is so much wrong with the failed African states there can probably never be a market economy. Then we have various states imposing their agenda. Europe pushed one country to allow grain from the US to rot in the ship’s holds because it was GMO. They held out their economic aid. The leaders weren’t starving and the aid makes them rich, so nobody hurt, right? That’s just one example. There are hundreds of how “help” from the west sabotages the local economy. Giving away free milk and baby formulae makes it impossible for entrepreneurs to sell their milk products, as another example.

Free stuff that sounds good in some senator’s office wrecks havoc when put into practice.


7 posted on 05/22/2016 8:57:09 AM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: sparklite2

LOL.


8 posted on 05/22/2016 8:58:33 AM PDT by Carriage Hill ( A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: Lorianne

Of course assist in any sane way we can. But remember and make sure they know that since the industrial age began, there is no instance of human starvation that is not politically caused.

The world is beyond the era of natural causes for starvation. It can only be done politically today.


9 posted on 05/22/2016 8:58:45 AM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,)
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To: Lorianne
sally struthers photo: Sally Struthers sally_struthers_closeup.jpg

Sally Struthers needs the work.

10 posted on 05/22/2016 8:58:48 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: Lorianne

It’s not drought and erratic rains... it’s years of bad choices... AND idiots in the west who ‘bail them out and enable’ ONE MORE TIME bec ause they want to feel superior more than they want to offer real help.


11 posted on 05/22/2016 8:59:34 AM PDT by GOPJ (Liberals have nullified real laws & replaced them with PC Shadown Laws. It's totalitarian.)
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To: gaijin

foreign aid comes in and displaces local techniques and Innovation and farmers they get hooked on it.

then when there’s some little Enviro blip on the radar screen there’s devastation.

foreign aid is an addiction and it’s hurting these countries.

one bleeding heart deeply involved in foreign aid finally got sick of it and wrote an exhaustive book about it spilling the beans.

foreign aid is wiping out Africa.


12 posted on 05/22/2016 8:59:38 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: gaijin

The problem actually isn’t foreign aid. It is corrupt political systems, kleptocracies, and an industry that likes them being poor.


13 posted on 05/22/2016 9:01:00 AM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,)
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To: gaijin
The problem is foreign aid.

This!

We've wiped out local economies with our "free" stuff.

14 posted on 05/22/2016 9:01:26 AM PDT by Drew68
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To: skams19

“And here come the pleas for increasing immigration from these countries.”

We have a winner.


15 posted on 05/22/2016 9:01:36 AM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,)
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To: Lorianne

“US inner cities are FOOD DESERTS”

HMMMMMM...!


16 posted on 05/22/2016 9:04:38 AM PDT by gaijin
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To: Gen.Blather

“Europe pushed one country to allow grain from the US to rot in the ship’s holds because it was GMO. They held out their economic aid. “

Europe is an astoundingly bad place and is at the root of most of the worlds suffering today. The people I know from Europe simply couldn’t be any nicer. But their government is beyond repair. And the government there is structured in such a manner as to ensure that it is extremely insulated from what the people want.


17 posted on 05/22/2016 9:05:19 AM PDT by DesertRhino ("I want those feeble minded asses overthrown,,,)
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To: gaijin
foreign aid is wiping out Africa.

That is not quite accurate. It is foreign aid that equates to giving men fish that is the problem. Foreign aid that teaches them to fish using the resources they have on hand is an enabler.

I am referring to the old saying, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Too much of foreign aid introduces technologies that the locals have no knowledge of and cannot maintain; as soon as the aid workers leave, the technologies break down and the locals are no better off than they were, except that now they have useless technologies sitting around rusting.

18 posted on 05/22/2016 9:06:00 AM PDT by exDemMom (Current visual of the hole the US continues to dig itself into: http://www.usdebtclock.org/)
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To: Lorianne

So much for getting rid if all those white foreign farmers in South Africa. Eh? Sub South Africa is fully capable of feeding their people. It’s the people themselves that have caused their own disaster.


19 posted on 05/22/2016 9:08:19 AM PDT by Doc91678 (Doc91678)
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To: gaijin
Did you say 'foreign aid"? China is on it!
20 posted on 05/22/2016 9:08:20 AM PDT by null and void ("when authority began inspiring contempt, it had stopped being authority" ~ H. Beam Piper)
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