UN World Food Program faces funding crisis

Today is World Food Day and the UN has been hosting a summit this week in Rome. Leaders are discussing ways to address food security with regards to climate change, internal conflict and migration, amongst others.

Today we are going to examine how food security  relates to two issues. Later we'll go to Argentina, where small farmers are protesting genetically modified crops. But first, we're going to look at food aid.

Disasters have recently struck countries across Asia, but after the world's attention moves away a great need still remains. The most immediate, of course, is food. The World Food Program is the UN agency that targets hunger. They are often the first to get to the scene to offer food to those affected. But funding for the agency has declined sharply since food riots last year drew attention to the problem and the World Food Program faces a $3 billion dollar gap in funding for 2009.
FSRN's Dorian Merina spoke with Bettina Luescher, the chief spokesperson for the World Food Programme in North America.