From Milwaukee to Haiti: Food Should Be a Human Right!
When: Thursday, July 31, 7pm
Where: Bangs Community Center, 70 Boltwood Walk, Amherst, MA (behind Rao's Coffee in downtown), Glass Room (downstairs)
Description:
Food prices have skyrocketed over the past several months, a disaster for hundreds of millions of people around the world. The crisis is also impacting people in the United States, including right here in Western Massachusetts. This comes at a time when prices for necessities like gasoline and health care are rising along with unemployment.
Almost 900 million people across the world, including one in ten US residents, do not get enough food, the most basic necessity of life. People working two or three jobs are having to choose between buying food or diapers, between health insurance and their mortgage payments. These are choices that no human being should have to make.
Demand at food banks across the US is up 15-20% this year, and supplies are running low.
In June, 3000 people lined up outside a welfare office in Milwaukee because of a false rumor that food v
ouchers would be distributed. Many people were trampled and 34 police cars responded to a scene that nearly became riot. Food riots have broken out in the past few months in Haiti, South Asia, across Africa, and in Egypt.What makes this tragedy a true outrage is that according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, enough food is produced each year to feed the world one and a half times over. Growth in food production is outstripping growth in population, and profits for agribusiness giants like Cargill and ADM have nearly doubled in the first quarter of this year.
A few corporations are getting richer while millions of people go hungry, not because of an actual food shortage, but because they are too poor to afford it.
Join the International Socialist Organization as we discuss the roots of the food crisis and what can be done about it. Food is a human right!
For more information, visit www.isonoho.org, email contact@isonoho.org, or call 413-351-2323
