World Vision announced its plans to raise a half-billion dollars to launch a new international effort to reach 10 million people in poverty.

A six-year Dallas food fight is finally over, thanks to a ruling from a Texas federal district court judge late last week.

After being told not to feed the homeless in city parks, Bread of Life Mission (BLM) in Seattle has official permission to continue its ministry.

Full disclosure: Art Simon, founder of the Christian hunger advocacy organization Bread for the World, is one of my personal heroes; I served briefly on the Bread for the World’s board of directors; and I consider David Beckman, Bread’s current president to be a sacrificial servant leader.

That’s why I was delighted yesterday to learn that David Beckman and Jo Luck, president of Heifer International, have been jointly awarded this year’s World Food Prize.

I had Cherrios (again) for breakfast thanks to General Mills and the Washburn brothers. But tomorrow (October 16) is World Food Day and it's a good time for Christians to think differently about food, food aid, and food ministry.

Globalization has transformed agribusiness, the national and international response to food emergencies, and the way Christians, their churches, and faith-based organizations respond to hungry and needy people.

This post serves as my heads up to CT readers that our November 2008 cover story is titled, "Hunger Isn't History." It will be posted on the CT site within a few days' time. The print edition goes out via USPS this week.

The ongoing global food story truly has crisis proportions. Here are some headline quotes that help to prove my point:

India has the largest number of hungry people in the world, despite the strong economic growth witnessed in recent years. From New Delhi, Anjana Pasricha says a new report shows that India's economic boom has brought new prosperity to its middle class and pulled many out of poverty, but that millions of people n the vast country still struggle on low incomes.

A report by the International Food Policy Research Institute says hunger, across India's 17 major states, ranges from "serious to extremely alarming." Voice of America

ROME (AFP) - The international goal of cutting hunger by half by 2015 appears "even more remote" after 75 million new people joined the ranks of the famished last year, a United Nations agency said Tuesday.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said that high food prices have reversed the gains made towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing the proportion of people suffering from hunger by 2015.

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Rome-based agency, said Wednesday that the number of malnourished people rose from 850 million to 925 million in 2007.

During world food summits held in 1996, 2002 and last June, the international community underscored its desire to reach food security and cut the number of people suffering from chronic hunger in half by 2015. AFP

What is essence of how Christians can think differently about global hunger? This is one of the big questions I thought CT should tackle in addressing the current hunger crisis because we in "The West" cannot provide enough free rice, beans, or wheat and cooking oil to feed the chronically hungry of the world until the kingdom comes.

First....