[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22011-22012]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             WORLD FOOD DAY

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise today to join people from more than 
150 nations in celebrating October 16 as World Food Day.
  World Food Day brings much-needed attention to hunger and 
malnutrition around the world. Inadequate nutrition is an unremitting 
global health threat. Over 840 million people in the world are hungry, 
including more than 300 million children.

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  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has worked for 
59 years to help both developed and developing nations create their own 
sustainable food supply.
  Because of the organization's achievements, many people who did not 
know where their next meal would come from can now live healthy and 
productive lives. Workers from the Food and Agriculture Organization 
have assisted farmers in Swaziland with growing new crops to combat 
problems of hypertension and sugar diabetes. They have offered 
alternatives to more than 2000 poor coca farmers in Bolivia, helping to 
curb the production of cocaine. Recently, the organization approved 
$400,000 in emergency relief funding for Caribbean countries devastated 
by this year's hurricanes.
  The Food and Agriculture Organization is not alone in its effort to 
fight hunger. Last month, the Senate Hunger Caucus, which I cochair 
with Senators Dole, Lincoln, and Smith, met with Ambassador George 
McGovern and the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food 
Program, Jim Morris, to discuss international hunger. We know it is 
possible to feed the hungry and improve the lives of millions of 
impoverished people around the globe. An additional $13 billion each 
year, for instance, could meet the most basic health and nutritional 
needs of the world's poorest people. It is a modest amount compared to 
the 25,000 lives lost to hunger each day.
  Several years ago, Ambassador McGovern and the former Senator Bob 
Dole called for an international school feeding program. They 
recognized that we can fight hunger among children in the world's 
poorest countries while also sending them to school. This idea, which 
became the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program, is 
one of the single best policy ideas I have ever heard. We know that 
poor children and families often do not have enough food to eat. We 
also know that poor children are less likely to go to school. But, by 
providing food as an incentive to attend school, we are able to provide 
fuel for the bodies and minds of these children.
  I am pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee accepted my 
request to increase funding for the McGovern-Dole program to $100 
million in the fiscal year 2005 Agriculture Appropriations bill. It is 
a simple step toward ending an epidemic that leaves children with 
bloated stomachs, emaciated faces, and underdeveloped minds--an image 
that I will never forget after seeing the devastation first hand in 
some of these developing nations.
  As we celebrate World Food Day and the progress of the Food and 
Agriculture Organization and other groups on the front lines in the 
battle against hunger, let us remember the substantial work that 
remains. I hope this day will spur us on to achieve the vision of a 
time when abundant food is available to every human being. I look 
forward to working with other members of the Senate Hunger Caucus 
toward that goal.

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