Minnesota Farmers Union

(May 14, 2010) - As a part of the change from one administration to another and in response to the 2008 food price crisis which led to an increase in the number of hungry in the world to over 1.1 billion people, the US State Department followed up on the commitment made at the G-8 Summit in L'Aquila to raise "more than $20 billion to support a renewed global effort" to reduce world hunger by developing a consultation document called "Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative"
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/130164.pdf.

The document recognizes that "chronic hunger and under-nutrition primarily results from poverty-people who are poor often simply cannot afford to buy food. Hungry families spend over half their income to buy the food they need to survive, with little to fall back on." But before looking at local food production issues, public agricultural research, reduction of post-harvest loss, role of women, and sustainability,  the flow of the argument quickly shifts to trade: "Food often cannot travel from surplus to deficit regions within and across countries because of poor roads and barriers at the border and checkpoints along the way."