Did you too get FAO’s message on Wednesday Nov. 11, 2009 ?

“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (<”http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/37300/icode/”>FAO) on Wednesday called for a day-long, global hunger strike.

“We are suggesting that everyone in the world who wants to show solidarity with the one hungry billion people on this planet go on hunger strike next Saturday or Sunday,” FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told a press conference in Rome.“

Did you see the UNNews’ message of Friday 13, 2009 ?

“Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intends to join a 24-hour fast over the weekend on the eve of the <”http://www.fao.org/wsfs/world-summit/en/”>World Summit on Food Security in solidarity with the planet’s one billion people who do not have enough to eat, his spokesperson said today.“

Did you join these two high-level authorities in fasting to show you solidarity with the billion of hungry people ?  You did ?  Bravo !

All those fasting for 24 hrs probably feel very good now, having shown their solidarity and their “strength” in resisting the temptation to sin.  Such a symbolic gesture is quite remarkable for it is the expression of our goodwill to change something in the catastrophic situation of all these undernourished, malnourished and hungry people.

For more than 25 years I have been totally devoted to this same good cause.  I have done a lot of research work to develop a water and fertilizer absorbing soil conditioner, enabling those rural people to keep their soils more moistened and fertile with a minimum of irrigation water.  I have set up many development projects with my own Belgian TC-Dialogue Foundation, successful in both reforestation and horticultural projects in Africa, Asia and South-America.  I have been active as a consultant for several international organizations in the combat of desertification and the alleviation of poverty.

And yet, I did not fast this weekend. The reason is : I do not believe in symbolic acts as long as the international community is not agreeing on the fact that effective aid and interventions to promote small-scale farming in the drylands, to stimulate the lay-out of kitchen gardens for the smallholders, to set up school gardens and hospital gardens in all the developing countries must start as soon as possible, preferably immediately after the 3-day summit in Rome.

I did not fast, although more and more publications are underscoring the need for small-scale farming to help the people in the developing world, rather than spending money at gigantic monocultures, mostly to produce food or cash crops for the national or  international market.

I did not fast, because I still read at regular intervals that enormous heaps of financial resources are asked for the continuation of food aid, without reserving food aid strictly to emergencies in cases of famine or starvation.

I did  not fast, because no clear signal is given that the trillions of dollars or euro’s asked for the “new era of agricultural revival” will be spent for the most substantial part at relief for the people in real need, e.g.

• the children suffering from malnutrition, needing fresh vegetables and fruits close to their houses and schools,
• the people in all those remote small hospitals, surviving without vitamins and mineral elements in fresh food grown in their hospital garden,
• and last but not least the numerous refugees in their camps, living in the most abject circumstances, having all those potentialities to take care themselves of community gardens in which fresh food could be produced locally, instead of keeping them in a situation of “beggers for food aid”.

To fast or not to fast, that may be the question !

It was a pretty nice symbolic signal, the one given by Mr. Jacques Diouf, Director-General of FAO, by Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of UNO and maybe by thousands of other people believing that their “effort” to fast “a whole day !” can make believe “the planet’s one billion people who do not have enough to eat” that solidarity will bring improvement in their daily situation.

Me too, I like symbolic signals, in particular the ones given on the battle field of desertification and poverty itself, i.e. in the villages and refugee camps where we installed successfully the small family gardens that brought sustainable development where there was nothing before.  Our symbolic signals were always welcomed by the local people with the brightest smiles.  I can’t resist doubting that this was also the case when “the global hunger strike” was announced.