|PIC1|Headlines in the media about fast rising food costs in the UK only reflect in broad terms what the majority of people in our country are facing. My weekly visit to the supermarket brings the reality right home as each week the cost of basic items increase again by a few pounds.

I know from others depending on benefits and tax credits how difficult it is to first battle the paperwork (which I am convinced is partly in place to stop as many families as possible from claiming) to qualify for the money they are entitled to, only to then face the depressing trek around the supermarket trying to buy what they need to feed their children with the small amount of money available.

And of course any attempt to increase income from part time employment to beat the poverty trap is generally doomed to failure as it is immediately taken away as benefits are reduced. Bearing in mind the 10p tax fiasco over the past few weeks I really struggle when I hear our leaders saying that they understand and care.

In the midst of this we at WER, like most other charities, are acutely aware of the impacts worldwide of the increases in basic food costs, especially in poorer and less developed countries. Our partner organisations around the world tell of increasing need and desperation with many families only able to have one small basic meal a day.

Global rice and maize prices have doubled in the past year. Even Walmart in the USA has started rationing rice this week and many rice producing nations have banned exports for the time being.

The truth is that whilst shipping food aid can make an immediate difference to peoples' lives in developing countries it is not a long-term answer. Future local self-sustainability is the vital key. It always has been and is even more essential today.

Our partner All Nations Christian Care in southern Sudan started a local agricultural project in the Ikotos region with assistance from WER just over 18 months ago. A donation of five kilograms of maize and beans for planting to 10 families in one community now brings an eight-fold return.

With three harvests each year the families no longer have to buy these basic ingredients. The pilot scheme also included the community returning a tithe of harvest to the central pool and from this 30 communities are now producing their own crops and even have enough to return the tithe and to sell produce to fund other family needs.

But of course we now need to replicate this throughout the region, and to do that we need more funds. Yet here in the UK many, if not most, charities are feeling the effect of the credit crunch and increased living costs via reduced income from donors. It is hard to ask the widow or the pensioner, the struggling family already finding it a challenge to pay the mortgage, for donations to help those in other countries.

Some days I feel like we need a big miracle, like the feeding of the five thousand. Perhaps that miracle is possible on a smaller scale, in each household, if we all look at what's in our shopping basket and ask if we really need it in order to avoid excess and waste. We need to resist the temptation to think only of ourselves and remember that there is blessing in giving, even out of our shrinking purse.



About Alex Haxton:

Alex has been Director of Operations at Christian humanitarian agency World Emergency Relief (WER) for the past seven years and before that worked as a consultant to the charity.

His business career was spent in the catering equipment industry for over 20 years before he moved on to Christian ministry which is how he first came to go to Africa.

A few months spent at Roffey Place Christian Centre brought a more radical change than anticipated, and it was there that Alex met a Pastor from Burundi who became a central influence on his life, even to this day.

He has since worked in Christian ministry, which he describes as "a call of God we must not ignore".

It was the work in Burundi and Rwanda, post genocide, which eventually brought Alex into contact with WER as he sought funding for relief and medical work in those countries. He remains heavily involved with humanitarian and development work worldwide through WER.

About World Emergency Relief:

World Emergency Relief is a non-denominational, global fellowship of Christians, working together, and with others, to help people in need. Underlying World Emergency Relief's efforts are God's love for this WORLD He created, the physical, emotional, spiritual, social and economic EMERGENCIES afflicting millions, and the RELIEF we can bring to hurting people, especially children, thanks to God's unending mercy coupled with the generosity of our donors.