Food for thought

Dr Alice Pollard provided a poignant contrast between life in a Third World country and that which we take for granted in Australia at a recent forum co-hosted by the Alfred Deakin Institute in March.

Dr Pollard is from the Solomon Islands where she is a highly regarded community leader and academic – one of just two women from that nation with a PhD.

She was part of a panel of speakers that also included Federal MP Richard Marles and World Vision economist David Lansley.

Taking the stage at the One Just World forum in Geelong, she told the story of Just One Toyota Hi-Lux and her 30-hour epic just to get from her home to the airport to come to Australia.

“There were many people wanting to get on the Just One Toyota Hi-Lux,” she said.

“I asked the driver not to pick up any more people because it was becoming unsafe, but he said he had to because there was no other vehicle.

“When he finally stopped picking up people, I counted and there were 20 in this Just One Toyota Hi-Lux.

“When we came to a river, the bridge was not finished, so the driver said we had to go to the mouth and see if we could cross there.

“So, with water up to our knees, we all had to get out and push the Just One Toyota Hi-Lux across the mouth of the river, all the time hearing the noises of it scraping on things in the river.”

Thankfully Dr Pollard’s journey from Melbourne Airport to Geelong was less fraught and she was able to enlighten the spellbound audience about the problems faced by subsistence farmers in the Solomons.

One of the most notable is the lack of an agricultural research and development institution.

“We had one, but it was burned down in the recent unrest,” she said. “It has not been re-built. There is no money to rebuild it.”

The forum, co-sponsored by AusAID, the International Women’s Development Agency, World Vision Australia and the Alfred Deakin Institute, was entitled “Is food for those who can afford it, or is it a human right?”

It was the first one its type to be held in regional Australia as all these organisations aim to raise awareness about the dire need for a better way of distributing food throughout the world.

It was noted by all the speakers that even though 800 million people don’t have enough to eat, and another 800 million people don’t know where their next meal is coming from, that there is enough food in the world.

In places like Australia, there is an abundance, as shown by the amount of waste, and the waistlines.

Richard Marles said that at a recent meeting he had with funeral directors, that the industry had to build larger coffins because of the greater number of obese persons.

David Lansley noted that Africa remains the real challenge for the rest of the world.

“A widow in Kenya gathered up firewood and travelled to a city in the hope of selling it,” he said.

“She left her family of six at home. Until she sold the firewood, she had nothing to eat herself, nor could she go home.

“She asked the question, what was the world doing about it?

“It is a very valid question.”

The complete forum was recorded and will be available in mid-March on the One Just World website:
www.onejustworld.com.au

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