As of January 1st the Ford administration had yet to make its decision regarding the amount of food to be sent to the starving nations in fiscal year 1975. Literally the fate of millions of persons faced with starvation throughout the globe will be determined by these decisions.
Mr. S. A. Marei, Secretary-General of the World Food Conference, stated at its conclusion: "Despite our resolution, a large number of people face starvation.''
Just how large that number is and will be depends directly on what actions the food-rich nations, and especially the United States, take in the months ahead. Unfortunately, the callous indecisiveness to date of our government in responding to the scourge of hunger offers little solace to the world's starving millions.
And experts in Rome estimated that in the next 8 months half a billion people throughout the world are faced with starvation or malnutrition unless additional relief reaches them.
When I first brought up the question of immediate food aid to Secretary Earl Butz at the initial meetings of the U.S. delegation to the World Food Conference, I was totally stunned by his response. The Secretary attempted to dismiss the issue by stating that when the Conference was planned last spring, its purpose was to deal with long-range questions. But the grim, desperate plight faced by the world's starving multitudes this November was not foreseen last spring. The fact that the World Food Conference occurred when the stark proportions of current famine had suddenly become more evident should have been seized as a providential opportunity to mobilize global resources for halting the rampage of starvation. Contending that the World Food Conference should not have focused unduly on those who are now dying from hunger is like urging firemen to ignore blazing cities in favor of discussions about future fire prevention.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned; at the Food Conference, our government fiddled while the world starved. Our eventual decision not to modestly increase our food aid to the world's hungry deepened the pangs of conscience among millions of Americans while worsening the pangs of hunger across the globe.
As the world watches the proportions of starvation take its toll this fall and winter, many will ask whether there is food, somewhere, for those who are dying.
There is. The United States can still decide to give leadership in combating global famine; fortunately the issue is not yet whether we can find the food, but whether we have the humanitarian will.
The United Nations estimates that the starving nations of the world need 8 million more tons of grain in the next 6 months to avert disaster. Some of that need is being met, but a large deficit, which is literally the difference between life and death for millions, remains. More than any other nation, we are in a crucial position to fill this famine-threatening gap; and can do so through the following actions:
First. Increase U.S. food aid this fiscal year to fully utilize all existing surpluses.
Secretary Butz stated to the U.S. delegation in Rome that we had available surpluses for a food aid budget of around $1.4 to $1.5 billion. That would provide as much as 5.5 million tons of food to the starving, and is the "high option" for food aid that has been before the President for consideration. Currently in this fiscal year, we are budgeting about $1 billion in food aid, equaling a little more than 4 million tons. This amount could be significantly increased to fully utilize available grain and other foodstuffs, especially wheat and rice, without any action by the Congress.
Second. Depoliticize the allocation of our food aid.
The food our nation gives as assistance abroad goes first not to where the most people are starving, but where we wish to support a friendly political regime or exert our diplomatic leverage. Our food is used as a political weapon; "food for peace" has frequently become food for war.
Of the nearly $1 billion in food aid projected in fiscal year 1975, between $250 to $300 million will go to Cambodia and South Vietnam, whose national economies have become parasitic on U.S. largesse. Roughly between $120 to $140 million is projected to go for political purposes to nations in the Middle East, and Chile has already received $40 million worth of food aid, with more likely to come. By comparison, even under the highest option for food aid before the President, India and Bangladesh would each receive less than $100 million, and Pakistan would receive less than $50 million. Those three nations, all faced with mass starvation, will together receive less food from the United States than the total which we will send direct to Southeast Asia. Preserving puppet regimes is more important in our food aid policy than preserving the lives of millions of people.
A simple decision to allocate our surplus food according to the needs of the world's hungry would result in hundreds of thousands more tons available to prevent famine.
Third. Establishing a policy of domestic food conservation.
Our meat-heavy diet is enormously wasteful of the grains needed by the world's starving. Changes in our patterns and our rate of food consumption can eventually free more foodstuffs for the hungry. A reduction in meat consumption of just 5 percent would free 6 million tons of grain, for instance.
It is true that changes in consumption patterns may not immediately create more grain for aid. But reducing our consumption would prevent higher domestic food prices that some argue would be the result of increasing our food aid. And over time, the altered patterns of consumption will produce a greater surplus for those in need.
Fourth. Redirect grain from trade with the rich to aid for the poor.
We are presently expecting to ship about 5.6 million tons more of corn and wheat to Western Europe than was originally targeted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the 1974-75 crop. Contracts for such grain trade are presently monitored by USDA. If the will existed to find more grain for the needy nations of the world, the amount going to the well-fed nations of Europe could be quickly and quietly reduced, without resorting to export controls. Finding the 8 tons of grain to meet immediate world need is not our sole responsibility, but must be done in cooperation with those other rich nations which have the money to buy our grain. Jointly reexamining needs and consumption patterns in view of a starving world can result in diverting some grain from those nations who have money to those who have only hunger.
We need not consign portions of humanity to starvation and death in the months ahead under the naive belief that there is nothing we can do. It is within the capacity of the world's food-rich nations to avert the famine which presently stalks millions throughout the globe. The steps outlined above would free the grain and foodstuffs necessary to eliminate the deficit of need in the food-poor nations. But to date, the United States has chosen not to make an undaunted commitment of its resources and leadership to this end.
The prospects for freedom from the scourge of hunger in years and decades ahead depend upon scores of actions which the poor nations, as well as the rich, must undertake. The agenda for these actions was identified, at least in part, by the World Food Conference. But without a resolute commitment to eliminate the immediate prospect of starvation for millions, words and plans about long-term actions have a hollow ring, and are mocked by the deaths of thousands each day who have no food.
The Christian Response
So what does all this mean? We can no longer suppose that our extra abundance can feed the hungry of the world. Rather, the world will be fed only by the sharing of resources which the rich of the world have assumed to be their unquestioned possession, and through the changing of values and patterns of life which the affluent have barely even questioned.
At least 60 percent of all those 2.5 billion people living in the poorer, developing world are malnourished. People can have enough food to keep themselves alive, but malnourished, making them far more susceptible to disease and death. Even more tragic is the evidence that malnutrition during a mother's pregnancy and the first months of an infant's life can cause permanent damage to the mental abilities of the child.
Famine cannot be averted by simply thinking we can increase the "size of the pie," so those who have little may have a little more. What we are discovering is that the pie itself has limits. Most all arable land around the globe is in use. Increased protein production once hoped for from the sea has not materialized, and now most scientists fear the seas are being "over-fished,"' which would deplete this resource. The simple truth, then, is that the "pie" must be shared more equitably.
The world produces enough food to feed all its inhabitants. But when one third of the world's population--all those who are comparatively the "rich"--consume two-thirds of the world's protein resources, then millions of the other two-thirds of the world suffer, starve, and die.
Gandhi put it cogently and well: "The earth provides enough for every man's need, but not for every man's greed."
Faced with these realities, and filled with the compassion of Christ, what is our response?
Above all, we must allow our hearts to be made sensitive to the suffering of our fellow man. The facts and statistics must be translated into human realities which we can feel from deep within, and which quicken our conscience.
We should allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable about our wealth, our life-style, our diet, and all our subtle worship of affluence.
We must let God's Spirit move within us, even to convict us anew of sin, and to show us the ways of repentance and renewal.
Most of all, let us cast aside all those rationalizations that would somehow prevent us from understanding and reaching out to those who suffer.
There are some who write, or seem to say, that perhaps all the worst about famine, disaster, and war will indeed come true, and that this only indicates and prepares us for the second coming of Christ.
Now I do not want to get into a discussion about eschatology, and all the various doctrines about the last days which have been such a source of division among us. But let us be agreed about one central biblical truth. We are never told to sit by and watch the world destroy itself in its inhumanity and sin, and console ourselves with the prediction that the end of all things must be just around the corner. To turn our back on the suffering of the world is to turn away from Christ himself. This is exactly what he has told us (Matthew 25:31-40).
It is precisely because all history is consummated in Him--because Christ is Lord over all--that we must give our lives in His service to the world's need. In so doing, we are proclaiming and giving witness to His love and His victory.
So let no more be heard about people being poor or suffering because it is "God's will," and thus there is nothing we should do. It is God's will that "Every valley shall be exalted; every hill made low; the crooked made straight, and the rough places plain" (Isaiah 40:4). God's will was told in Mary's words, when the angel announced that she should give birth to Christ: "The hungry he has satisfied with good things; the rich sent empty away" (Luke 1:53). Thomas Merton has written: "It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God's will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe you--try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God's will yourself!" The command and compassion of Christ compels us to respond to the physical and spiritual needs of a hungry world.
What concretely can we do? First, there are the organized voluntary relief efforts which call for our participation and support: Christian groups like World Vision, and secular groups like Care.
We are never told to sit by and watch the world destroy itself, and console ourselves that the end of all things must be just around the corner. But we are far beyond the point of thinking that a few dollars given once a year will be sufficient to fulfill our responsibility. Our talents and skills are called for. We can give them, voluntarily, to this mission, and even take a year or two to go ourselves, and help serve those in need.
While we are aware of world-wide hunger, it is easy, and convenient, to forget the hunger and suffering in our own home town. And make no mistake--it is there. The poor and oppressed, suffering the effects of hunger and malnutrition, are throughout our own land, living side by side with our society's affluence and abundance. In each of our cities, the gifts and potential of countless individuals are maimed in the earlier years of life because of a lack of food and protein. That is corporate sin in the eyes of God. So if we are touched by Christ's Spirit for those who are suffering and hungry, then let us begin with our neighbor who is here at home.
But then, let us allow that compassion to flow in its fullness for all who suffer everywhere, for they all are our neighbors.
Let me offer some specific suggestions:
--Every congregation could establish a specific budget amount directed to meeting the needs of starving people in some particular point of the world.
--Christians can be asked to give a specific tithe just for the purpose of relieving hunger; further, we should consider a graduated tithe, which increases in its percentage according to the amount of one's income. "From those to whom much has been given, much will be expected."
--We should renew the Christian discipline of fasting as a means for teaching us how to identify with those who hunger, and to deepen our life of prayer for those who suffer.
--We must all analyze, in prayer before God, our own habits of food consumption. Specifically, we can drastically alter our consumption of meat, and the money we save we can give to alleviate world hunger. Some Christians may decide that part of their witness means being a vegetarian. Families can decide how to limit their consumption of beef, perhaps to only certain days, or as times of special celebration, or just on certain days of the week.
--Christmas can be a time when Christians throughout the land join to celebrate Christ's coming, not by a feast, but like Jesus, by a sacrificial outpouring and sharing of our plenty with the needy: "For you know how generous our Lord Jesus Christ has been: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).
--As Christians, we can, by our word and our living example, call the nation to the task of sharing from its plenty with those who are in need.
These are only suggestions. But the point is that Christ's love beckons us to far more than simply charitable giving.
These words of 1 John should speak to our deepest selves, and send us on our mission: "We for our part have crossed over from death to life; this we know, because we love our brothers. The man who does not love is still in the realm of death.... It is by this that we know what love is: that Christ laid down his life for us. And we in our turn are bound to lay down our lives for our brothers. But if a man has enough to live on, and yet when he sees his brother in need shuts up his heart against him, how can it be said that love for God dwells in him? Love must not be a matter of words or talk; it must be genuine, and show itself in action" (1 John 3:13-19).
Mark Hatfield was a contributing editor to Sojourners, and a Republican senator from Oregon, when this article appeared.
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