The worldwide hunger epidemic is real. Rising costs of fuel and food, persistent conflicts, disease and global warming mean that the crisis will get worse before it gets better.

That's why Mercy Corps is opening a new Action Center to End World Hunger — to get ordinary U.S. citizens like you motivated, equipped and mobilized to end hunger. The new Center opens October 16 in New York City.

All of us, working together, can end the world hunger epidemic. How? Become a hunger activist. Get your children, neighbors, family and friends to become hunger activists. Visit the ActionCenter.org website, and if you're in New York, stop by the Center and get in the action, right now.

Your Action Center visit puts you up close and personal with our field work around the world — in a fascinating, dynamic setting abuzz with smart conversations, high-tech media and hundreds of ways to get involved right now.

For starters, watch this Tina Fey video about the hunger epidemic and how you can take action with Mercy Corps' to end hunger worldwide. Then visit Mercy Corps' ActionCenter.org website to learn more.

Photo: deCadmus (flickr)

In most progressive political circles, Wal-Mart is more reviled than revered. So it can come as a shock to hear the massive American retailer has teamed up with Global Envision's parent, Mercy Corps — a humanitarian agency known for its leanness and innovative approaches to poverty — on a project that benefits small indigenous farmers in impoverished Guatemala.

Wal-Mart reputation is far from spotless. It is sued between two and five times every weekday in federal court, according to a group that tracks Wal-Mart litigation and supports lawyers for plaintiffs fighting the retail giant. It's also been cited for child-labor law violations in three states, accused of aggressively fighting employee efforts to unionize, and criticized for squeezing suppliers and threatening the health of local retail.

Among the questions the partnership raises: Is Mercy Corps being used as public relations window dressing? How do Wal-Mart's business motives align with Mercy Corps' charitable ones? And most importantly, would training farmers to be Wal-Mart suppliers eventually lead to their exploitation?

The deal between Mercy Corps and Wal-Mart also involves the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is keen to see humanitarian groups team up with U.S. corporate interests to put a dent in developing-world poverty. The so-called "Inclusive Market Alliance" is backed by financial commitments of $1.1 million from USAID, $600,000 from Wal-Mart, and $500,000 from Mercy Corps.

Here's why the agreement made sense from Mercy Corps' perspective. Rural Guatemala remains stubbornly poor. In 2000, 75 percent of Guatemala's 6.4 million poor resided in rural areas. Until now, the agency's programs in Guatemala have focused on helping indigenous groups to gain ownership of land, and to farm that land productively.

Most small Guatemalan farmers sell to market middlemen, who have earned the pejorative nickname "coyotes" — they're the ones who profit from the transactions, rather than the farmers. Farmers could earn a higher return selling high-value products to large-scale buyers, i.e. supermarkets.

Wal-Mart controls a large share of Guatemala's supermarket industry. They have an interest in finding good, reliable suppliers, and in cutting out those same coyotes that are despised by farmers. They're willing to invest money in training and equipping farmers with the knowledge and tools they need to grow quality produce that supermarket shoppers want to buy.

As part of the program, farmers participate in trainings on processing and post-harvest techniques to meet national and international agricultural standards, and critical pricing and negotiation skills.

"Due to a great variety of buyers," explains Douglas Ovalle, who manages the project for Mercy Corps, "there is no danger of Wal-Mart owning the market 100 percent. What this project helps to do is expand options for the farmers."

And those expanded options, he says, will lead to greater income for small-farm families — many of whom lack even electricity and running water.

To many Americans, Wal-Mart is a wanna-be monopolist. To Mercy Corps and the struggling Guatemalan farmers it's trying to help, Ovalle says, Wal-Mart is "just another buyer."

Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

For months we have been following increasingly urgent reports about food scarcity, rising prices and vulnerable populations. Last week, the World Food Program said the crisis is a silent tsunami that is "threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger."

The World Food Program says it has never seen a crisis of this proportion. Analysts expect it will be difficult to reverse in the short term. The Financial Times says humanitarian aid at levels comparable to Indonesia's 2004 tsunami response will be needed to prevent the starvation of millions.

For Mercy Corps the increase in food prices is hurting the very people our program staff around the world are working to support.

Reports from those working most closely with affected communities confirm that the situation is dire — and has the potential to grow much worse.

Penny Anderson, Mercy Corps' food security program officer, told OPB radio: "I've been working with Mercy Corps for over eight years now and I have never seen anything like it."

In Niger, prices of bread, powdered milk and wheat flour have spiked, exacerbating the West African nation's precarious food situation. Currently about two-thirds of the population is at serious risk, with shortages pushing the country closer to famine.

In Syria, spiraling food prices have forced Mercy Corps to cut back on the amount of food we can buy and distribute to hundreds of Iraqi refugee families.

In Tajikistan, where Mercy Corps recently distributed blankets and generators to help residents keep warm during an unusually harsh winter, about 40 percent of households in the Rasht Valley are down to no more than one warm meal a day. Neighboring Kazakhstan has suspended wheat exports — shutting off Tajikistan's primary supply of the grain.

Like several other humanitarian aid agencies, Mercy Corps has established a Global Food Crisis fund to help its field teams respond to needs arising from the worst global food crisis in recent memory.

As tensions continue to run high, Mercy Corps warns that further chaos and violence in Kenya, long a bastion of regional stability, could push neighboring East African countries toward new humanitarian crises.

Our colleague Matt Lovick states, "historically, Kenya has been the hub that allowed goods and assistance to reach these land-locked, war-torn places," said Matt Lovick, Mercy Corps’ Nairobi-based East Africa regional program director. "Its importance in fostering and maintaining stability in this region cannot be underestimated."

If hostilities escalate in Kenya, neighboring economies could suffer immediately from a shortage of critical resources. Markets, planting seasons and access to food could all be severely disrupted, increasing the risks for communities already on the brink of disaster.

Check out the latest update from IRIN News Agency.