South Asia to face food crisis in future

Dhaka, Mar 3 (UNI) Developing countries of Africa and Asia, particularly South Asia, are going to face 'absolute food shortage' in the days to come, recipient of the Champions of Earth Award 2008 Dr Atiq Rahman said.

Speaking at a reception here yesterday, the winner of the highest UN award urged the world leaders to make the planet a fairer and better place to live in by establishing social justice.

Painting a gloomy picture of environmental degradation across the globe, Dr Rahman said the developed nations of North America and Europe and the newly industrialised countries like China, South Korea and others have to take the responsibility for natural calamities that are hampering agricultural production.

Lead author for the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr Atiq said global warming would seriously affect the world. ''The developed nations can pay for it, but the poor countries will have to pay the lives of their people. This is part of global injustice,'' he said, according to a report in The Daily Star.

Dr Rahman said one-third people of the world earn only one dollar a day, while the other one-third earn only two dollars, which is the price of only a bottle of water in White House. ''This is unfair,'' he said.

Dr Rahman noted that when wealth is overflowing in the stock markets, a huge number of children are left malnourished and millions of others left without medicine.

Citing an example he said if a Nicaraguan mother givers birth to a child in Boston, the baby would consume hundred times more food, fuel and avail other facilities than the same baby if it were born at the same time in Nicaragua.

''So God has done His duty, but it is we the people who have made the world unequal. This inequality is linked to environmental reasons,'' the report quoted him.

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