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MSU Extension program good way to battle hunger

Food insecurity. It has a nice clean sound, doesn’t it? It reminds us of terms like pre-owned or even better, newsed. These are words contrived to dress up unattractive realities. In the case of pre-owned and newsed, it’s vehicles that are for sale.

For food insecurity, its hunger or, depending on the past of the planet being referenced, starvation.

It is this state, this nation and this world’s everlasting shame that in a time when surplus crops are grown, or can be grown, or can be shipped anywhere, there are people literally dying for a meal. And we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become too awfully smug up in this neck of the woods as there are a great many people going to bed each and every night hungry in Superiorland.

Simply put, it’s a disgrace.

This doesn’t mean people aren’t working hard behind the scenes to find ways to feed the poor. There certainly are, and we honor them for their noble efforts. But more needs to be done and a program coordinated by the Michigan State University Extension just might be a step in the right direction.

It’s called the World Food Prize Michigan Youth, and it offers young people an opportunity to be part of the solution, a recent Mining Journal story on the matter detailed. The fourth annual event, to be held May 10, seeks to inspire and prepare the next generation of global leaders to end world hunger and poverty. The institute is a collaborative effort of MSU Extension, Michigan Future Farmers of America, the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the World Food Prize.

The program will be held simultaneously at two locations for the first time: MSU’s campus in East Lansing and the Upper Peninsula Research and Extension Center in Chatham. This will allow participants from the Upper and Lower peninsulas to interact with each other virtually, while making everything more accessible to students across the entire state, our story stated.

The top performing students in the institute will be selected to attend the World Food Prize Global Youth Institute in Des Moines, Iowa, in October.

Hats off to MSU Extension Service for coordinating this program. Is it going to solve the problem? Of course not. But, we believe, it’ll raise awareness with a group of people who must be made aware of the problem and its extent: our youth.

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