Norman Borlaug Lecture: Grassroots Efforts in the FIght against Global Hunger-A response

On Monday night, I had the chance to go to a lecture from David Beckmann, founder of Bread for the World and Jo Luck Vice-President of Heifer International for receiving the 2010 World Food Prize Laureates. Hearing all of the credibility for David was by far very, very intriguing for me since I was not ready for anything he was about to say. David has a degree from the London school of Economics, and a degree from Yale as well. It surprised me how he was able to speak about poverty in such nations like Brazil and  Bangladesh which have the same poverty rates as the U.S. and Britain. During my junior year in school, I had the opportunity to work with someone from my school that was from Bangladesh, and it was interesting to see how poverty affects people in different ways. Although he did not like his job, he still worked hard to achieve his goals of becoming finically successful. During Mr. Beckamnn's speech, this thought came to my mind and was very provoking in what he said. As was with Joe Luck, former CEO of Heifer International, was very very talkative in what she had to say and credibility to back it up. It seemed as though she had more credibility about endless experiences, but it raises a question: Is what she did with that experience in the given time frame enough to give herself enough credibility to say that the decisions that she had made as a CEO right given the justification by her experiences? Yes she went through all sorts of things, but was it a long enough time frame to fully understand what they were designed for? This provoked me that she diden't mention talking with any sort of Anthropologists to ask what the social cultures were that were placed in, so that she could better understand why certain societies value certain traditions in their culture. Personally, I have used Heifer International and I must say that some of the livestock you can purchase seems a bit pricey, but more so that Heifer can make a profit rather than to benefit others. It seems like a genuine program, but I'm not sure that Joe looked at the bigger picture to figure out what her program has really done not just to others or the target audience(s) she has impacted. At the end of the lecture someone posed a question that asked how Heifer was impacting/ helping in Africa, and someone else commented on how they had provided so much 3rd party resources, it actually made the farmers there weaker since their goods were worth less due to relief efforts from organizations such as Feed My Starving Children. Personally, I was stunned at this since I had never though about it like that, but I was glad they brought it up considering most people know just to " do this and that" to end hunger when in reality you should only do it to a certain extent before it starts to hurt the cause more than helping it. Overall, the talk was very, very informative, but some of the information was presented in a biased manner, but in a way that most people were so intrigued by these people receiving their  awards for the 2010 World Food Prize Laureates.