World Food Day

World Food Day – also called World Hunger Day – was first initiated by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) of the United Nations. For more than 25 years a nice-sounding motto reminds us every year on October 16 that several million people are starving around the world.
 
In 1981 the motto was: Food comes first. Ten years later: “Food for the future.” Twenty years later in 2000 – after several million people had died in abject hunger: “A Millennium Free From Hunger.” In the new millennium things continue as in the old one. In 2003, the theme was thus “International Alliance Against Hunger.” In 2005 the theme was “Agriculture and Intercultural Dialogue” and for 2006 the good idea was “Investing in Agriculture for Food Security.” In 2007 it was the martial “Right to Food.”
 
We should not doubt anyone’s good intention to help the starving. This exists apparently just as do the required means.  For the leading industrial nations who have the technical means and the required production of wealth, there are in fact reasons why this is simply not possible. Those who do not like the inevitable consequences should criticize these reasons instead of denouncing them recklessly as unfair, egoistic, indifferent, or even malicious.

Get rich is the slogan of the global market economy. Through the invisible hand of the market forces, the competition of market participants should lead to the optimal allocation of resources. Simply producing goods and organizing their distribution would only destroy the local markets in a market economy. Help to self-help is, in the market economy, the only thing that can be offered to eliminate global poverty. This means that those who were unsuccessful in the competition for profitable business should be helped to be successful against those who were successful in competition. If they then are still not successful, then they can simply not be helped. This is how the market economy works.