Great Uncle Fred? There have been quite a few reports on TV lately about people starving or nearly starving in different parts of the world. I cannot understand this. There is plenty to eat in the world, isn`t there? Why do some people starve when there is more than enough to eat? (Louisa, Summer 2008)

Did you know that for every inhabitant of our planet, there are five hectares of land. Of those five, one is too arid for cultivation, one too mountainous, one too cold and one too sterile; of the other one hectare, only half is cultivated... Not only is there, as you say, more than enough to eat, there is plenty of room to provide even more abundant resources... Your bafflement and distress I share but I could hardly say that I know the answer to your question which is perhaps the most important question that can be asked about the world in which we live. I presume the answer would revolve around questions of organisation and economics and war but the main responsibility for the present situation must lie with a failure of collective will. We have the power to feed all the people but we have not yet worked out how to exercise that power. We would have done had we fully understood that we are all part of one family, but we have not yet understood this... Perhaps the best organisation to get in touch with regarding the present state of affiars is called DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa) which really does want to make things better, and speaks sense. Sorry, Louisa, I`m with the questions on this one, not the answers.

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