Baltimore, MD, April 16, 2008 - As the cost of food around the world spirals upward, causing widespread hunger and triggering riots in cities in several nations, Catholic Relief Services is urging the Administration and Congress to immediately increase global food assistance to the developing world. At the same time, CRS is calling on the United States and other nations to intensify the search for means to provide long-term food security.

To meet the pressing need for feeding the poorest and most vulnerable people, an immediate appropriation of up to $900 million is required simply to buy the same amount of food aid that the United States provided last year. However, rising costs and demand for emergency aid may well require added resources to keep pace with last year's aid levels.

We applaud the Bush Administration's decision to tap $200 million from the nation's emergency food aid reserve, known as the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust. This action, recommended last week by CRS, will jump start an emergency response to the pressing needs of this food crisis. It is now imperative that $100 million be appropriated to replenish this vital food aid reserve. This release from the Emerson Trust does not diminish the need for supplemental food aid funding.

This spike in food prices is not just a short-term crisis. The International Food Policy Research Institute is projecting high commodity prices to last for the next decade.

"We are witnessing the unfolding of an historic calamity," said Sean Callahan, CRS Executive Vice President for Overseas Operations.

"If a typical family living on $2 per day or less used to spend more than half their income on food, what happens when prices suddenly increase by more than 30 percent? They go hungry," Callahan said.

"The Administration and Congress need to formulate an urgent response to this crisis that addresses the immediate needs as well as the long-term challenges. Otherwise we will end up looking back with shame on a missed opportunity to avert untold suffering on a global scale — and to ensure that such a crisis does not happen again."

CRS field offices around the world are already reporting and responding to the effects of commodity price increases:

• In Haiti, Port au Prince erupted in riots directly related to food prices. It is expected that national food shortages will continue until the harvest starts in June. The cost of a bag of rice has risen by as much as 50%. There is new vocabulary in Haitian Creole to describe the persistence of hunger pangs: "Klorox," after the chlorine-based bleach, and "Asid Batri, '' or battery acid, comparing the sensation of hunger to the effects of swallowing these toxic substances. There are reports of people stealing cooked food and of people eating mud cakes in the city of Les Cayes.

• In Lesotho, there have been media reports of children collapsing in school because of hunger. Many families use 50 percent of their income on food, so when food costs rise, it puts many people over the edge.

• In Ethiopia, signs of the commodity price increases include an increasing number of women, children, elderly and disabled people living on the streets of Addis Ababa. The Missionaries of Charity, whose urban centers take in the poorest of the poor, have seen a 20 percent increase in demand for their services over the past two years.

• In Burkina Faso, people have taken to the street in the major cities of Bobo Dioulasso, Ouahigouya, Banfora and Ouagadougou to protest against the high cost of living. The price of a 50 kilogram bag of ordinary rice increased by 25% in the first three months of this year, while local cottonseed oil is up by 33 percent and imported oil is up 67 percent. For a typical household of seven living on the salary of a middle class government worker ($236 a month), food costs that used to consume 60 percent of their revenue before the crisis now take up 75 percent — without considering other household costs, like utilities, rent, school fees and medical expenses.

• In Guatemala, the most recently quoted monthly value of a typical food basket is $213 for a family of six. Compare that to the minimum monthly salary for agricultural work, which is $217, and for non-agricultural work, which is $223. Salaries barely cover the cost of food.

CRS is continuing to distribute food to those who need it, including the desperately poor, orphans and other vulnerable children, pregnant women and the sick. Additional emergency food distributions are being arranged in CRS field programs as conditions require them.

In several countries, CRS is also arranging for the distribution of vouchers to purchase seeds and tools that will enable suburban and rural communities to bolster harvests. In urban areas, CRS is working mainly through the Missionaries of Charity to strengthen a joint response to a significant increase in demand for their services.

Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. The agency provides assistance to people in more than 100 countries and territories based on need, regardless of race, nationality or creed. For more information, please visit www.crs.org.