By Hamid Golpira

Today is World Hunger Day, so let's make efforts to end starvation on this planet.

Actually, every day is World Hunger Day, since every day 25,000 children die of hunger or poverty-related causes, as well as another 10,000 adults.

When the idea to establish a World Hunger Day was first proposed, people began discussing what day should be chosen, but then someone said, “Thousands of people are starving to death every day, so every day should be World Hunger Day.”

No one disputed that statement, so it was agreed that every day would indeed be World Hunger Day.

Last Friday October 16 was the United Nations World Food Day. October 16 is the one day of the year in which World Food Day coincides with the 365 World Hunger Days of the year.

On that day, some people lamented that over one billion of our fellow human beings had no food or not enough food on World Food Day.

However, the fact that very few of the people unaffected by the tragedy are aware of the silent genocide of hunger that is occurring on this planet actually makes the situation worse.

And a lot of people who do know what's going on just don't care, which is a sad commentary on the human condition.

Actually, indifference to the plight of the oppressed is one of the driving factors behind the hunger crisis.

ActionAid issued a Hunger Report last Friday to mark World Food Day.

ActionAid describes itself as “an international anti-poverty agency working in over 40 countries, taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together.”

The ActionAid report stated:

“Over one billion people -- a sixth of humanity -- don't have enough to eat. Almost a third of the world's children are growing up malnourished. This is perhaps one of the most shameful achievements of recent history, since there is no good reason for anyone to go hungry in today's world.”

“However, hunger is a choice that we make, not a force of nature. Hunger begins with inequality -- inequality between men and women, and between rich and poor. It grows because of perverse policies that treat food purely as a commodity, not a right. It is because of these policies that most developing countries no longer grow enough to feed themselves, and that their farmers are amongst the hungriest and poorest people in the world. Meanwhile, the rich world battles growing obesity.”

The ActionAid report said Brazil, China, Ghana, Vietnam, Malawi, Guatemala , and several other developing countries are making “striking progress” on reducing hunger.

Among developing countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi , Haiti, Pakistan, and India all got low scores for their efforts to reduce hunger.

The report added that “most rich countries are reneging on their commitments to finance a more ambitious fight against hunger.”

Among industrialized countries, the United States scored just 8 out of 100 on hunger eradication. Only New Zealand , which got a score of 7, ranked lower. Japan, Canada, Portugal, and Australia rounded out the bottom six.

Luxembourg got a score of 75 out of 100 to top the table of industrialized countries, followed by Finland, Ireland, and Norway .

The ActionAid report also stated:

“The food crisis in the new millennium is the bitter fruit of years of underfunding, political neglect and failed free market policies. At independence, Africa was a net food exporter. In the last three decades, especially in Africa, structural adjustment programs -- imposed by donors and lenders such as the IMF and World Bank -- rolled back state support to agriculture and basic social services. Trade liberalization has further deepened dependence on food imports and vulnerability to global price volatility.”

“It's the role of the state and not the level of wealth that determines progress on hunger,” Anne Jellema, ActionAid's policy director, said on Friday.

“Every six seconds a child dies from hunger, but this scandal could easily be ended if all governments took determined action,” she added.

Every six seconds a child dies of hunger?

What kind of planet is this?

If someone from another planet asked the people of this world what is happening on Earth, most wouldn't be able to describe the situation. They wouldn't know that about 35,000 people die of hunger or poverty-related causes every day and that most of them are children. They wouldn't know that half of the 6.7 billion people of Earth are living on less than two dollars a day.

And the Earthers who do know these things wouldn't be able to explain to our alien visitors why most of the people of this planet are living in abject poverty, even though this is a world of plenty that produces enough food to feed 8 billion people.

So, what must be done?

If you can afford it, feed one hungry person today. Feed more if you can.

Find an unemployed person a job at a living wage that will allow him or her to feed his/her family.

Make serious efforts to end the neoliberal economic model's global system of exploitation that puts profits above people.

And work hard to create a paradigm shift in planetary consciousness, because that's what we need if we want to eradicate poverty and establish social justice in this world.

Every day shouldn't be World Hunger Day. Let's make today World Anti-Hunger Day. Let's make every day World Anti-Hunger Day.