Earth Equity News

Central African Food Crisis Worsens. By John Collins Rudolf, NYTimes, September 7, 2010. "Torrential rains and flash floods that swept through cities and villages in West Africa in late August have intensified a food crisis in the region, leaving upwards of 10 million people suffering from severe food shortages, the United Nations and relief organizations warned last week. The floods, which destroyed crops and livestock, struck an area already on the brink of famine after successive years of drought and failed harvests. Rising world grain prices, resulting partly from the heat wave and drought that destroyed wheat crops across Russia this summer, are compounding the crisis, relief organizations said… The crisis is worst in landlocked Niger, where as many as 400,000 children are at risk of dying of starvation or disease because of malnutrition, the aid group Feed the Children said."