Bread for the World's Recipe for Hope Week #6

From Bread for the World...the last installment of Recipe for Hope. A statement of a hunger problem and proposed actions to fight it!
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Ingredient for Despair: Restrictive and distorted trade policies
Another national government policy that can come between supply and demand is the prohibition of certain exports. Some grain-producing countries have done this recently in an effort to keep domestic prices under control. Thus, less grain is available globally while demand has risen. The result is dramatic increases in the price of corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, rice, and others.

In a recent series on the hunger crisis, the Washington Post reported that factors that interfere with supply and demand explain why "the global food trade never became the kind of well-honed machine" that has made the price of manufactured products increasingly similar worldwide. Some economists argue that if market forces played a larger role, food prices would have risen more gradually and the world would have had more time to adjust.

Read the Washington Post story:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/27/ST2008042702198.html

Ingredients for Hope:
Our Recipe for Hope has two components—something you can do; and something you can say to our nation’s leaders.
1) Prayers for a Time of Hunger
In celebration of Father's Day this Sunday (June 15)—and to remember fathers around the world struggling to feed their families—include special prayers for hungry people in your worship services or when you say grace at home. Download prayers in full-color.
http://www.bread.org/learn/rising-food-prices/RecipeForHope/recipeforhopeprayers.pdf

2) Call Congress on Bread for the World's annual Lobby Day, June 17
Please call your member of Congress on Tuesday, June 17th, and ask them to increase poverty focused development assistance by $5 billion in the fiscal year 2009 budget. Use this special toll-free number, and ask to be transferred to your senator's office: 1-800-826-3688. Find out who your members are.
Talking points:

-In light of the recent hunger crisis, we must increase our commitment to programs that provide sustainable assistance to hungry and poor people.

- Poverty-focused development assistance is focused primarily on programs that reduce hunger, poverty and disease in the world's poorest countries.

- An additional $5 billion will help to ensure that the United States keeps the commitments we have made to the world's most vulnerable people.