Letter from the Publisher

On the whole, planet Earth is richer than ever. The face of agriculture has changed dramatically: constantly updated technologies have in-creased crop yields ten-fold in recent decades, and a small number of computer-managed green-houses are now capable of producing more vegetables and fruit than entire regions.

Mario Lubetkin Director General (ai)

Produce is now so abundant in rich countries that governments must subsidise their farmers to keep market prices up, but they pay little attention to the devastating consequences for world trade, and for farmers and peasants in less affluent countries.

It is well known to those attending the ''World Food Summit: five years later'' in Rome that over 800 million people are still hungry or undernourished, and are overwhelmingly concentrated in the countries of the developing South.

It is also known that the 1996 Summit's goals are far from being achieved and that the hungry are the same people who suffer otherwise preventable diseases, war, genocide, HIV/AIDS, gender and racial discrimination, illiteracy, human rights violations and who are further punished by state financial austerity programmes.

They are the poorest among the poor in this rich world. And women, who account for most of the food production in the least developed countries, are the most disenfranchised of all.

This magazine, produced with the generous assistance of FAO, is a member of the IPS-TerraViva family of publications, initiated in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In these pages, you will find articles by IPS correspondents from all regions of the world, telling stories of brave peo-ple struggling to overcome the vicious circles of dependency and denial, to achieve skills, know-how and food security on their own and under adverse circumstances.

The right to be fed is the right to live. The hundreds of millions of farmers - particularly women - in developing countries, punished by unfair terms of trade, unfair subsidies in rich countries, unfair domestic economic policies, do not want to be fed with handouts, but to be given the opportunity to feed their own families, to put their skills - old and new, domestic and foreign - to work, to keep their land fertile and green.

They want to be enfranchised not marginalized. They, who work so hard, need - and have the right - to be part of the planet Earth's immense wealth.

• Kenyan Dairy Farmers Floundering
  
  
• Rice Woes Pushing Indonesian Economy to Food Crisis
  
  
• Caribbean Eyes Organic Food Markets
  
  
• Environmental Researchers Highlight Overgrazing
  
  
• African Farmers Seek Help on Biotechnology
  
  
• Vegetable Business -a Way Out of Poverty
  
  
• Schools without Walls Offer Skills to Farmers
  
  
• Indian Traders Make a Killing, as People Starve
  
  
• Global Downturn Means More Hungry People
  
  
• Thousands of Central American Children Could Die of Hunger
  
  
• Media: Creating Awareness, not Panic
  
  
• Cuba: From Vacant Lots to City Gardens
  
  
• Women Sow Food Security