Already heavily dependent on food handouts, Lesotho is buckling under chronic food insecurity, poverty and one of the highest HIV rates in the world. Now, rising food prices are adding to the crisis, and the most vulnerable, often children, are paying the price.
High fuel and food prices amidst global food shortages and depleted resources, point to the larger issue of man's inability to solve his problems. Our institutions and governments fail us; our leaders and the scientific community always disappoint.
Just what is the cause of all this chaos? We are more tecnologically advanced today, yet we are in worse shape each decade. We're unhappy, overfed, obese in the industrial nations and starving in the third world.
Instead of looking to science or government for the next remedy, perhaps looking at ourselves will do some good. Egoism in the world is the root of all man's problems, says an article in this publication addressing the Food Crisis.
http://www.kabtoday.com/epaper_eng/content/view/epaper/7771/(page)/1/(artic le)/7773
As seems to be the case wherever there is hunger in Africa, Lesotho has cattails (Typha, bulrush,Kachalla, cumbungi...). If grown in clean water, cattail is food. It is one of the most productive food crops in the world, with a year round bounty to share. Not all is edible. Like the other aquatic weeds that trouble Africa, cattail likes to absorb toxins and pollutants. What isn't fit for human consumption can be made into ethanol or charcoal for fuel. Clearing your cattails and other aquatic weeds (water hyacinth, water lettuce, Phragmites, red water fern...) would help you with many problems. Harvesting them would make the long term efforts needed sustainable.