FOOD FOR THOUGHT by Mai Ngo
A
s we move towards the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) 2015 target date, we speculate whether or not we will succeed in achieving the objective of
MDG #1: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
The issue of food security demands more urgent
attention, as according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 872 million people are undernourished (and 852 million of whom live in developing countries). While global events such as the 2007-08 food price
crisis dampened the progress to halve hunger, projections that by 2035 only 3% of world population will live in extreme poverty re-inject optimism into the international community. In his February 2013 State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama mentioned the need for Americans to join with allies to eradicate extreme poverty in the next two decades, and the Presidential Initiatives of Feed the Future promised 3.5 billion to tackle global food security. Our editorial team chose to focus the Volume 4 of iAM
on food, in our own efforts to contribute and shed light on the MDG goal of halving the 1.2 billion people living on less than a $1.25/day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. As the world population is projected to increase to nine billion, meaning a requirement to increase agricultural production by 70%, food security
remains one of the most pressing global issues of our time.
The following articles, art and book review will give
you a small taste into the complexities of our global food system. Françoise Briet gives serves up a slice of the impact of imported food trends with her article Don’t Bring Me the Food that Western People Love! while Jennifer Edmondson breathes new life into junk mail in Sweet Apple. Nidhi Tandon enhances flavour by looking at the role of women and agriculture in Smart Farming, and Elizabeth Fraser’s comparison of the Canadian and Kenyan food systems in Side-by-Side leaves us marinating with further questions. Photographer Allan Lissner adds spice by sharing his haunting images of unjust realities in our world, and the Canadian Red Cross offers recipes for families in emergencies. Oxfam Canada presents the complexities of the global food system on an infographic platter for a visual understanding of big-picture ideas and Samantha Rudick asks us to think about leveraging reward in Carrot Before the Stick. Lisa Myers challenges us to think about our own food memories and their correlation to our identities in Blueberry Spoons. Finally Jack Hui Litster garnishes the array of contributors with his review of Lester R. Brown’s book on food security: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity. Just as every human needs air and water, every human
needs food. We hope that you enjoy the contributions to this edition, and let the authors and artists inspire and inform you into awareness that access to food is a universal right.
The 2012-13 Editorial Board Team. iAM March 2012 3
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