GHANA AND BRAZIL

JOHN AGYEKUM KUFUOR and LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA have been chosen to jointly receive the 2011 World Food Prize for their personal commitment and visionary leadership while serving as the presidents of Ghana and of Brazil, respectively, in creating and implementing government policies to alleviate hunger and poverty in their countries.

President Kufuor serving school children in Kibera, Nairobi in Kenya in 2010. Photo credit:  Office               

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meets with people in in Lauro de Freitas, Bahia, Brazil. Photo credit: Ricardo Stuckert 

The significant achievements of these two former heads of state illustrate that transformational leadership truly can effect positive change and greatly improve people’s lives. 

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10 October 2011 – The United Nations agencies working to combat hunger today called for action to ensure long-term food security as a new report shows that high food prices are likely to continue and possible increase over the next decade.

“The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2011,” an annual flagship report which the three Rome-based agencies jointly produced this year, states that small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity.

The report – produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) – says that crises, such as the food crisis several years ago and the current one in the Horn of Africa, “are challenging our efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of reducing the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by half in 2015.”

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New research by Bridget Freisthler, an associate professor of social welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs, shows that hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries in L.A. are clustered in better-off places and are rare in areas with higher crime rates, such as South L.A.

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World Harvest Food Bank (1014 Venice Blvd.) offers its consumers the choice of paying $25 or devoting four hours of volunteer work in exchange for grocery carts of unlimited fruits, vegetables, breads, and other foods. Unique from many of L.A.’s other charitable organizations that require proof of need, this organization does not require its customers to give any information in exchange for food; rather, it asks no questions and invites customers of all incomes. 

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T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times

Ms. Callahan cuts the day’s foraging prize: a Sugar Baby watermelon. She also collected five pounds of tomatoes.