This article authored by Prof Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Laureate 2006, was originally published on the World Farmers’ Organization (WFO) website and is featured in the August 2016 issue of their F@rmletter.

Rude Awakening

We are living in a time of unparalleled prosperity, fueled in part by revolutions in knowledge, science, and technology, particularly information technology. This prosperity has changed the lives of many, yet billions of people still suffer from poverty, hunger, and disease. And now, food, oil price and financial crises have combined forces to bring even greater misery and frustration to the world bottom 3 billion people.

Sadly, however, we saw headlines reporting news of a sort many people assumed we would never experience again: skyrocketing prices for staple foodstuffs like grains and vegetables (wheat alone having risen in price by 200 percent since the year 2000); food shortages in many countries; rising rates of death…