Sustainability and food security is achievable if we get our priorities right. What good is a system if it does not provide a reasonable living standard for all of its members let alone basic needs like food, shelter and water. Given our ever increasing population, the truth is that we all have to live less so that some can live more and if we are honest we in the West generally live well beyond our needs. If we wish to live at current standards, the reality is we can't unless we drastically reduce our global population.

Overpopulation cannot be ignored forever. A social welfare system in countries where overpopulation is a problem will go some way toward solving the issue of Aged Care in those nations dependent purely on family to provide a safety net. Naturally this is not achievable in isolation of other programs.

Attending to community and social needs is not "pig swill" and can be easily achieved within a capitalist type framework with some regulation. I am not talking restrictive controls but merely some basic foundation values to put the brakes on the unfettered growth of capitalism and the free market. We are too hung up on political labels like capitalism and communism and instead should be more pragmatic about the sort of communities we would wish to live in and how this can be achieved without the constraints of traditional 'thinking'.

Dear Bugsy,

I'm so sorry. I goofed with the website and left out a number in error.
It should have read:

www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3300141,00.html

The article is in English and deals with the UN, World Bank, to Coordinate Task Force efforts in Food Crisis.

No, I'm not German. Unfortunately, I don't speak or read it.

So, Yabby, I have no idea what you wrote. If you could repeat it in English?

Thanks Corrie, looked it up and it is exacily what I ment.
fluff4

FOOD CRISIS ? 'What food crisis'?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23599517-27702,00.html

Over the past six weeks the UN has reported food riots in Egypt, Yemen, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. In the worst case in Haiti, five people died and prime minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis was forced from office.

Rice shortages have led to Cambodia and Egypt banning rice exports, China imposing heavy export taxes and many other countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the Philippines begin stockpiling.

I figured this would happen about 10 yrs ago.. so I bought a large block of land...and could be self sustaining food wise. Maybe I AM a "prophet" afterall? :) yes..that's a joke.

But the food situation isnt.

What I'll be interested in, is how Passy and Ginx and the socialists among us react to it.. "Lets share what we have the teeming masses flooding out shores"? hmm I wonder.

What's that? there ARE no teeming masses on our shores? aaah.. ur right.. for now.

There are now more overweight people across the world than hungry ones, according to experts.
78 percent of all malnourished children under five lived in countries that had enough food to feed their whole populations.
The American Obesity Association now claims that over 64.5% of Americans over the age of 20 are overweight
In the US 35.1 million people – including 12.4 million children – live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger.
In the US 40-50% of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.
In UK approximately $38 billion US dollars worth of food is thrown away, every year.
Over 9 million people die worldwide each year because of hunger and malnutrition. 5 million are children.
Approximately 1.2 billion people suffer from hunger
About 1.2 billion suffer from obesity
"People are not hungry these days," the Financial Times newspaper admitted, "because food supplies are not available; they are hungry because they are poor."