Food Crisis

Dear friends,

The world food crisis is skyrocketing - steadily rising prices are squeezing billions and triggering food riots from Bangladesh to South Africa. Aid agencies say 100 million people are facing starvation.

In response, the United Nations is convening an emergency summit of world leaders in Rome this week. There is a real danger that rich country leaders will push half measures and band-aid solutions - we need a huge global outcry to demand rapid, massive, coordinated action.

The head of the UN, Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, will receive our petition at the summit at 9:30AM on Wednesday morning. This is a huge opportunity for our voice to reach our leaders directly, but we need half a million voices in the next 60 hours. Click below to sign the petition if you haven't yet, and forward this email to everyone you know:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/9.php?cl=95016045

Already over 200,000 Avaaz members have joined our call for emergency food aid and deeper solutions such as investing in food production in poor countries and fixing harmful rich country policies such as burning food as biofuels. Our campaign was launched in response to a personal video appeal to our community from the foreign minister of Sierra Leone, where 90% of the population are facing severe hunger. Click above to watch the video.

The food crisis, like the climate crisis, is a planetary emergency. It's another sign of how interdependent and fragile our world is. And how we all need to work together, across all our borders and divisions, to save it.

With hope,

Paul, Ricken, Graziela, Galit, Iain, Ben, Pascal, Veronique, Milena and the whole Avaaz team.

PS - here's a link to see past Avaaz campaigns: www.avaaz.org/en/report_back_1

And here's some more background information on the food crisis:

The Director of the UN Human Development report warns in the Guardian that the Rome summit could just put a band-aid on this crisis:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/02/food.globaleconomy

The BBC analyzes the 'Silent Tsunami' of the food crisis:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2008/costoffood/default.stm

The US will face criticism at the summit for 'burning food' as biofuels:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/business/worldbusiness/30food.html?em&ex=1212379200&en=7893996338e2f455&ei=5087%0A