Classroom writing challenge at page bottom

At a time when Americans are responding so compassionately and so generously to the Haitian earthquake disaster, an even greater but preventable disaster is occurring every day and is taking more lives every two weeks than the total lost in the Haitian earthquake.

Every two weeks more than a quarter of a million perish from preventable hunger and related diseases. It doesn't have to be that way. Modern technology has made it possible for us to create agri-facilities that produce food and drinking water far in excess of conventional production methods without pesticide and chemical pollution, without crop failure from drought and other weather problems, and without burning fossil fuels that create devastating climate changes around the world. (See three brief news-clips about it below and a students' writing challenge at the bottom of the page.)

Based on the most modest statistics from world health monitoring agencies, about 16,000 children alone die of hunger and related suffering each day. That is one child dying every five seconds. Imagine placing the emaciated bodies of each child in a normal hearse. In a little over a month, we would create a bumper to bumper funeral procession extending all the way from New York to San Francisco. That doesn't include adult victims and doesn't portray the misery of those living with the consequences of malnutrition — lost human potential, including mental retardation and other maldevelopment — all of which we have the power to end if we so choose, while simultaneously generating unprecedented job creation here and abroad. Just as America created millions of jobs when it retooled to wage war against tyranny in the middle of the last century, retooling to wage war against hunger can create millions of jobs now.

The estimated cost of facilities capable of providing food and drinking water for 50,000 is less than twenty percent of the cost of one B-52 bomber. During media coverage of the earthquake response, I heard a Haitian who was receiving help from an American say, "I love America. God bless America." Protecting our national security is important, of course, but is it possible that a new national focus on increasing food and drinking water production here and around the world would strengthen our national security in a way whole squadrons of bombers could never do?

The vision: an idea whose time has come.

It's a win-win effort: a national commitment to meeting this most basic human need would both help end human suffering from hunger and help end human suffering from unemployment and underemployment by creating millions of well-paying and meaningful jobs, a major concern of leaders at all levels of government. Because jobs flow from serving human needs, it is not enough to be asking, “How can we create jobs?” — as though jobs are created by magic. Instead, the important question to ask is, “What are humankind's most urgent needs?” Meeting those needs will create jobs. First and foremost among those urgent needs is the need for food and water for parched and starving children and adults.

Elements for creating multistory crop production farms taking up a city block and capable of feeding and providing water for at least 50,000 people already exist. Greenhouses are not new. Hydroponic farming is not new. Irrigation systems are not new. Solar energy is not new. Controlled lighting, temperature, and humidity are not new. Recycling and purifying water are not new. Indoor planting beds and fields are not new. Multistory buildings are not new. What is new is simply the combination of those elements, even in urban settings where 80 percent of the world's population is projected to live by 2050.

Cost estimates for construction of a multistory crop production farm range from $85 million to $200 million, depending on size and scope. Even at the $200 million figure, the cost of a multistory crop production farm is less than we have been spending on the Iraq war every week. Our expenditures alone for war, for foreign oil, and for global entertainment and media over five years would build enough multistory crop production farms to feed more than half the population of the entire world.

Beyond that, billions of dollars, private and public, are projected to be invested in multistory crop production farm technology and development as the need intensifies.  Investment interest in multistory crop production farm technology and development is driven by studies showing that the world's population growth during the next four decades will require almost 60 percent more food production at a time when tillable land availability is shrinking.

The beginning: taking the first steps in a new direction.

Multistory crop production farms create hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing and construction here for workers who create and assemble millions of valves, light panels, microswitches, computer control systems and panels, solar energy panels, desalinization and recycling systems, hundreds of thousands of tons of steel and reinforced concrete, millions of miles of electrical cable, hundreds of thousands of miles of pipe, hundreds of thousands of panes of glass, millions of fasteners, and thousands of planting and harvesting devices and maintenance machines for the farms.

Multistory farm developments also create thousands of computer programming and technological research jobs, hundreds of thousands of jobs in transportation of supplies and materials, and, of course, thousands of jobs processing crops and maintaining the farms themselves.  If providing water and food for parched and starving children and adults is not sufficient motivation for focusing on meeting this most basic of human needs, perhaps the employment benefits inherent in the vision can provide the necessary impetus.

Our national leaders might want to consider what happened to our nation when JFK committed us to landing a man on the moon within a decade.  With his articulation of that vision, our languishing economy came alive with a sense of purpose.  Jobs were created.  Educational excellence blossomed.  And enduring life enhancements for all humanity flowed from it.  Too often today we hear talk of creating jobs, but without vision, without any sense of purpose.  Jobs doing what?  Building unnecessary gadgets or, worse, instruments of death while others starve and the crisis comes closer and closer to home?

Imagine what might happen if our president said, "I am today committing the full resources of the United States of America to eliminating hunger from the face of the earth within the next decade by harnessing modern technology and helping all humankind realize the full promise of safe and environmentally sound multistory farming." Just imagine.

The future: will our nation lead or follow?

Resourcefulness directed toward worthy endeavors that feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and educate every man, woman, and child to live healthier, happier, and more fully human lives is the essence of strong economic development that endures. Let us begin. — John Gile

• Teachers: click here for your students' writing challenge.

• The day the president shocked the world . . .

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