AUBURN, AL (WTVM) -
Hundreds of students and members of the community gathered at Auburn University Tuesday to hear award winning author and anti-hunger activist Roger Thurow lecture on a continuing problem facing our world - feeding those in need.
"As we look into the future and in coming decades, this work ending hunger through agriculture development is so vitally important, not only for Africa, but so vitally important for all of us," explains Thurow.
Thurow spent three decades in Europe and Africa as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
In 2003, he wrote a series of stories on famine in Africa that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting.
Thurow says the lack of essential elements is holding back the ability for farms to be productive, not only abroad, but also here in the United States.
"It's a cruel irony that Africa's hungriest people are her smallholder farmers. So you have this horrible oxymoron of hungry farmers. There equivalent here is hungry Americans, there shouldn't be hungry Americans, that's an oxymoron that doesn't fit together," says Thurow.
Thurow is impressed in the strides Auburn University has made in the fight to end world hunger.
His lecture today not only inspired agricultural majors, but all people who want to join the fight.
"Frequently people ask well what can I do? The problem is so big. You start by raising your voice, raising the clamor, by raising the outrage and talking to your members of congress saying these are important programs," explains Thurow.
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