Vice President Joe Biden spoke last Monday at the World Food Program USA award ceremony. He praised this year's winners, Bill Gates and Howard Buffett, who have dedicated their talents to fighting hunger around the globe.
But Biden also made an admission of guilt—for being optimistic that we can win the struggle against global hunger. This battle is now ongoing in the famine zones of East Africa, drought-ravaged Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, and numerous other regions.
Biden said, "I am often accused of being an optimist. I plead guilty, because I believe strongly in the human capacity—and desire—to build a better world. But I am particularly confident in our ability to feed the future because we have done it before."
Biden urges Congress to think ahead when planning the new budget. He said, "Investments made to ward off food insecurity and prevent its recurrence can prevent the vicious cycles of rising extremism, armed conflict and state failure than can require far larger commitments of resources down the road." (WFP/Rene McGuffin)
Biden said, "Beginning in the 1950s, we provided agricultural support—research, training, and partnerships with American firms—to South Korea, which was one of the poorest countries on the planet. Today, it is the world’s 15th largest economy, and a major trading partner responsible for hundreds of thousands of American jobs."
This is a long way from the South Korea that U.S. Army major Charles Arnold saw in 1951 during the Korean War. Arnold, who led a UN Civil Assistance team, said children arrived at feeding stations and "greeted us by rubbing their stomach and saying hungry." After regular meals from Arnold's team, the children took on a new, healthy look. They began to smile.
South Korea was also a country that benefited from the famous CARE packages that fed so many hungry people in Europe after World War II. President Truman urged Americans to send these CARE packages to feed those hungry and displaced by the Korean conflict.
As time went on, South Korea gained from agricultural development projects, similar to those Biden praised in the current "Feed the Future" campaign. South Korea was also one of the beneficiaries of the U.S. Food for Peace program started under President Eisenhower and expanded during President Kennedy's administration.
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