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From the Editor

Dear JCTR Bulletin Readers:

As we share with you reflections in the articles contained in this issue, Third Quarter Bulletin of 2002, it is very disconcerting to think about the current situation obtaining in southern Africa.  We are facing a serious crisis of hunger.  The sad part of this crisis is that it is affecting almost all the countries of southern Africa, thereby blocking possibilities for intra-regional assistance or options to addressing the problem.

Figures of the millions of people affected and those likely to be affected have been mentioned by a lot of individuals, groups, aid agencies, churches, NGOs, inter-governmental agencies, governments, etc.  But these are just figures.  And one obvious thing about figures is that they often come with a certain sense of remoteness to the actual experiences of the people affected, in this case by hunger.  The face to the suffering people obviously tells us a very different picture from that of only figures.  For it brings us qualitative dimensions of the whole situation: malnutrition, dehumanizing conditions, psychological stress, sickness, death.

Much as this problem of hunger is affecting a block of countries, we should note that there are significant economic, social and political variations in these countries.  Variations too exist in the approaches to handling this problem of hunger, for example, acceptance or non-acceptance of genetically modified maize grain.  In Zambia, for example, the GMO debate is still going on. Complete letter

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