Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving - we do have a lot to be thankful for. My dessert offering is some food for thought from the World Bank research team. It would not take a huge change in government and individual behavior to cut world hunger in half in 8 years.

1. Ask your favorite elected official what she or he knows about world hunger and what she or he  is doing on the issue of hunger.
2. Ask yourself what you can do to get a fair shake for small and medium sized farms in US and the world.
3. Skip two take out dinners and send that amount of money to an organization what supports aid that improves chances/capacity of small  farmers here in US and in one foreign country.
4. Say a prayer of thanks for those who work to make life better for all of us.

October 19, 2007 – World Development Report 2008 calls for greater investment in agriculture in developing countries. The report warns that the sector must be placed at the center of the development agenda if the goals of halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 are to be realized.

• While 75 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas in developing countries, a mere 4 percent of official development assistance goes to agriculture.
  
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily reliant on agriculture for overall growth, public spending for farming is also only 4 percent of total government spending and the sector is still taxed at relatively high levels.
  
• For the poorest people, GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in raising incomes of extremely poor people than GDP growth originating outside the sector.