However they first need to be fed before they can even learn, especially the children. One of the problems is the corruption of the local governments where food distribution need to happen. Much money and food gets confiscated and does not reach the designated destination. This does not obviously mean that we should not try.

I heard on the radio that the movie producers of “Slumdog Millionaire” paid enough money for the real Indian children who played in the movie to have their homes built, but the money was confiscated buy their local officials, for whatever weird reason.

Lets do our part! I am glad you agree.

Marek

You ask what our response should be to this challenge. I am sure you meant this to be a rhetorical question but I’ll answer it anyway:
1) The same day you posted this, I saw that Nature magazine posted an article at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/full/458148a.html entitled “A smarter way to combat hunger”. It’s worth skimming, but I think you will like its “teach a man to fish…” type of idea. They’ve got some newer farming techniques they can be teaching people rather than just giving them food.

2) Along with teaching better farming techniques, I think there should be more dialogue about reducing meat consumption. Animals eat way more food than we do, in fact, two-thirds of our agricultural exports go to feed livestock, rather than hungry people. Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimated that if people reduced their meat consumption by just 10 percent, enough grain would be released to feed 60 million people.

Cheers,
-Scott