Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts

Surely there is more to the cure for famine than simply FERTILIZER?

“Malawi hovered for years at the brink of famine. After a disastrous corn harvest in 2005, almost five million of its 13 million people needed emergency food aid. But this year, a nation that has perennially extended a begging bowl to the world is instead feeding its hungry neighbors. It is selling more corn to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe. In Malawi itself, the prevalence of acute child hunger has fallen sharply. In October, the United Nations Children’s Fund sent three tons of powdered milk, stockpiled here to treat severely malnourished children, to Uganda instead. “We will not be able to use it!” Juan Ortiz-Iruri, Unicef’s deputy representative in Malawi, said jubilantly. Farmers explain Malawi’s extraordinary turnaround — one with broad implications for hunger-fighting methods across Africa — with one word: fertilizer. – Source

I like what the late comedian Sam Kinnison used to say with regard to the endless sending of food and medicine out all over the world to countries who can’t get it together. I looked it up for the actual quote;

His routine during the Ethiopian famine of the early to mid ’80s, with the famous punch line:

“YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A F—ING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT’S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT’S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A F—ING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SH!T, WE’LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE’LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA — WE JUST DON’T LIVE IN THEM, A$$HOLES!” – From an appearance on Rodney Dangerfield’s “It’s Not Easy Being Me,” 1984.” – Source, better yet, listen to the entire World Hunger Rant.