I read a report about the surging costs of food in poorer nations today. Here’s some of the excerpt from Associated Press:

Families from Pakistan to Argentina to Congo are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions and forcing some to give up eating meat, fruit and even tomatoes.

Scraping to afford the next meal is still a grim daily reality in the developing world even though the global food crisis that dominated headlines in 2008 quickly faded in the U.S. and other rich countries.

With food costing up to 70 percent of family income in the poorest countries, rising prices are squeezing household budgets and threatening to worsen malnutrition, while inflation stays moderate in the United States and Europe. Compounding the problem in many countries: prices hardly fell from their peaks in 2008, when global food prices jumped in part due to a smaller U.S. wheat harvest and demand for crops to use in biofuels.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization in 2009, around 1.02 billion people (or 15 percent of the world’s population) are undernourished or go hungry. In 2006 this was a lot lower at 854 million and this has been due to neglect of agriculture, the worldwide economic crisis and the increase in food prices. Nearly all the undernourished are from developing countries.

The article led me to reflect on images I have seen of crop harvests and production, food sources and even meal times with families around the world. It’s amazing how much food forms part of a community experience and brings people together.

This image of women in a village near Saharanpur in India remains one of my favourites. These women were campaigning for the right to access the area around their original village before they had to move when the Indian government formed a national park there. They had been moved off their land and had thus lost sources of food and industry.

The older woman was active in the campaign, and this moment seemed to ensnare both how other members in the village felt about her, and also the basic human right of people to have access to food supplies.

You can see more images of food in India at my database.

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Feel free to email Jo at admin@visitedplanet.com with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

I am often asked which places I’ve visited are my favourite or where I could live of the places I’ve been. It’s a tough one but I normally answer promptly that home turf, Australia, is the best spot – and it is!

Sunset in South Australia

After that I would probably rank India, Italy, Turkey, Ireland, China and Laos not necessarily in that order. But I also love Thailand, Vietnam, Bhutan, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

In terms of a photographic overview here are some of my favourite places to photograph and why.

Prayer by the Ganges, Haridwar (India). You almost can't take a bad photograph in India, everything is so colourful, so exotic and often very unpredictable. You just need to have a camera handy and switched on and you're guaranteed almost once-in-a-lifetime shots like this one.

Sunset in Pamukkale (Turkey). The sun caught the minaret of this mosque just beautifully at sunset. I love the food, the friendly people and the fantastic landscapes of Turkey.

Carnevale, Venice (Italy). Italian festivals are unlike anything I've seen elsewhere. The performers have an incredible ability to engage the audience and audience participation is so fluid and fun. Italians know how to enjoy life and it makes for good people photography.

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Feel free to email Jo at admin@visitedplanet.com with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com