Who Will Feed the World?

ACCORDING to estimates by the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency for the fight against hunger, 800 million people​—many of them children—​are at starvation’s door. Recently, that agency said that resources and attention that many developed nations could have applied to this situation were monopolized by other problems, such as terrorism. The spread of infectious diseases has intensified the problem. The agency’s Global School Feeding Report said about African countries where AIDS is rampant: “An entire generation of parents is being wiped out. The children they leave behind are often left to fend for themselves, most lacking the basic farming know-how and life skills that typically pass from one generation to another.”

The World Food Programme is promoting an initiative that aims to serve at least one meal a day in schools. The idea is not only to reduce hunger but also to activate through regular education other programs designed to prevent HIV/AIDS among youngsters.

Where the initiative has been implemented, children have received nourishment, training in personal hygiene, and other assistance. It has also been observed that where behavior is modified, HIV/AIDS infection rates decline.

Sadly, the results of human efforts are often only partial and not decisive. But the Bible makes a comforting promise concerning a permanent solution to the problem of hunger. “There will come to be plenty of grain on the earth,” says Psalm 72:16. Under God’s Kingdom, people will be able to say of Jehovah God: “You have turned your attention to the earth, that you may give it abundance . . . You prepare their grain, for that is the way you prepare the earth.”​—Psalm 65:9.

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WFP/Y. Yuge