Haiti food aid lags, hunger deepens
- added July 21, 2008
- 3 responses
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- goldenways
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As nation starves, aid is stuck in port or inside warehouses
DESCHAPELLES, Haiti - Every inch of Rivilade Filsame's body hurt, from his swollen, empty stomach to his dried-out, wrinkled skin. The 18-month-old had been crying for so long in the hospital malnutrition ward that his mother no longer tried to console him.
After soaring food prices led to deadly riots in April, the U.S. and the U.N. promised millions of dollars in aid to poor families like Rivilade's, as well as help for farmers to break Haiti's dependence on imported food.
But three months later, The Associated Press has learned that only a fraction of a key U.S. food pledge — less than 2 percent as of early July — has been distributed.
Even those who oversee the food aid programs say they are stopgap measures while programs to create jobs and help Haitian farmers to increase production are more critical to ending the country's chronic hunger once and for all.
Emergency aid stuck in port
But right now, aid workers say, the poorest families need immediate help, and little of the emergency food promised has reached them. Most of what has reached Haiti is stuck in port. Nearly all the rest is still inside warehouses — victim of high fuel prices, bad roads and a weak national government.
Barely any food at all has gone to the desperate countryside, where more than half of Haiti's 8.7 million people live.
Even in the Artibonite Valley, Haiti's most fertile region, child malnutrition is rampant. Farmers — reeling from last year's floods and a dry spring, and lacking equipment that was promised to increase their yields — are eating the very seeds they should be planting to avoid future hunger.
One in three children is malnourished in the most rural areas of the Artibonite Valley, according to the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, where Rivilade was treated in June. Doctors there admitted 113 children to the malnutrition ward from May through June, almost two and a half times more than last year. In April and May alone, there were 361 children under five who were severely malnourished and more than 2,500 others moderately so.
"Kids who would have been moderately malnourished last year are severely malnourished this year," said hospital official Adeline Azrack. "Families that were once just vulnerable are now in crisis."
Food riots could return
With families eating through their meager food savings and with the hurricane season in full swing, the food riots could be returning. On Thursday, U.N. police said, a small group of demonstrators burned tires and threw rocks at police and U.N. peacekeepers in Les Cayes, where the April riots began.
***Story continues,click link to read***
DESCHAPELLES, Haiti - Every inch of Rivilade Filsame's body hurt, from his swollen, empty stomach to his dried-out, wrinkled skin. The 18-month-old had been crying for so long in the hospital malnutrition ward that his mother no longer tried to console him.
After soaring food prices led to deadly riots in April, the U.S. and the U.N. promised millions of dollars in aid to poor families like Rivilade's, as well as help for farmers to break Haiti's dependence on imported food.
But three months later, The Associated Press has learned that only a fraction of a key U.S. food pledge — less than 2 percent as of early July — has been distributed.
Even those who oversee the food aid programs say they are stopgap measures while programs to create jobs and help Haitian farmers to increase production are more critical to ending the country's chronic hunger once and for all.
Emergency aid stuck in port
But right now, aid workers say, the poorest families need immediate help, and little of the emergency food promised has reached them. Most of what has reached Haiti is stuck in port. Nearly all the rest is still inside warehouses — victim of high fuel prices, bad roads and a weak national government.
Barely any food at all has gone to the desperate countryside, where more than half of Haiti's 8.7 million people live.
Even in the Artibonite Valley, Haiti's most fertile region, child malnutrition is rampant. Farmers — reeling from last year's floods and a dry spring, and lacking equipment that was promised to increase their yields — are eating the very seeds they should be planting to avoid future hunger.
One in three children is malnourished in the most rural areas of the Artibonite Valley, according to the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, where Rivilade was treated in June. Doctors there admitted 113 children to the malnutrition ward from May through June, almost two and a half times more than last year. In April and May alone, there were 361 children under five who were severely malnourished and more than 2,500 others moderately so.
"Kids who would have been moderately malnourished last year are severely malnourished this year," said hospital official Adeline Azrack. "Families that were once just vulnerable are now in crisis."
Food riots could return
With families eating through their meager food savings and with the hurricane season in full swing, the food riots could be returning. On Thursday, U.N. police said, a small group of demonstrators burned tires and threw rocks at police and U.N. peacekeepers in Les Cayes, where the April riots began.
***Story continues,click link to read***
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- goldenways
- 1 month ago
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There needs to be a program that allows countries such as this to work their way out of poverty instead of being reliant on imports and aid when times get tough.
AID is a necessary thing, but more should be done to ensure this doesn't happen.-
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- phillyharper
- 1 month ago
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Cannabis Hempseed as a Basic World Food
In 1937, Ralph Loziers, general counsel of the National Institute of Oilseed Products, told the Congressional committee studying marijuana prohibition that “hempseed... is used in all the Oriental nations and also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people every day are using hempseed in the Orient as food. They have been doing this for many generations, especially in periods of famine.”
That was over 70 years ago. Today we know hempseed is the plant kingdom’s richest source of life-giving essential fatty acids, and may well be the cure for cancer and heart disease.
Hempseed: Humanity's Best Single Food Source
Of the 3 million plus edible plants that grow on Earth, no other single plant source can compare with the nutritional value of hempseeds. Both the complete protein and the essential oils contained in hempseeds are in ideal ratios for human nutrition. Only soybeans contain a higher percentage of protein. However, the composition of the protein in hempseed is unique in the vegetable kingdom. Sixty-five percent of the protein content in hempseed is in the form of globulin edestin. (The word “edestin” comes from the Greek “edestos,” meaning edible.)
The exceptionally high edestin content of hempseed combined with albumin, another globular protein contained in all seeds, means the readily available protein in hempseed contains all the essential amino acids in ideal proportions to assure your body has the necessary building blocks to create proteins like disease-fighting immunoglobulins -antibodies whose job is to ward off infections before the symptoms of sickness set in.
Cannabis seed protein even allows a body with nutrition-blocking tuberculosis, or almost any other nutrition-blocking ailment, to get maximum nourishment.
Even more important for building a strong immune system, hempseeds are the highest source in the plant kingdom of essential fatty acids. These essential oils, linoleic and linolenic acids, are responsible for the luster in your skin, hair, eyes, and even your thought processes. They lubricate (clear) the arteries and are vital to the immune system.
These essential fatty acids were used by Dr. Joanna Budwig (nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year since 1979) to successfully treat "terminal” cancer patients, as well as those suffering from cardiovascular disease, glandular atrophy, gallstones, kidney degeneration, acne, dry skin, menstrual problems and immune deficiency.
This, as well as other research, prompted William Eidleman, M.D., UCLA, and R. Lee Hamilton, Ed.D., Ph.D. Medical Researcher-Biochemist UCLA Emeritus, to speak out on behalf of “the life-giving values” of cannabis hemp. They state:
“These essential oils support the immune system and guard against viral and other insults to the immune system. Studies are in progress using the essential oils to support the immune systems of persons with the H.I.V. virus. So far they have been extremely promising.
“What is the richest source of these essential oils? Yes, you guessed it, the seeds of the cannabis hemp plant ... The insane prohibitions against the most valuable plant on Earth, cannabis hemp, must yield to public demand ... The promise of super health and the possibility of feeding the world is at our fingertips.”
Hempseed extracts, like soybeans, can be spiced to taste like chicken, steak, or pork and can be used to make tofu-type curd and margarine, at less cost than soybeans. Sprouting any seed improves its nutritional value and hemp can be sprouted and used like any other seed sprout for salads or cooking.
from "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" www.jackherer.com - All chapters online free. -
Damn....this is so shitty....what do we need to do as a global community to get food and resources to these people immediately...? What has been missing all of this time as these people have gone hungry? Man, we gotta help all of these people...this can't continue...
BFAM_RVS
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