Dear ONE Member,

It's being called the "Silent Tsunami." In three years, prices for the basic staples that feed the world—wheat, rice and corn—have risen by a staggering 83%. For people in the developing world, affording enough food to eat is becoming a daily struggle for survival.

The New York Times is reporting that in Haiti, people are eating cakes made of mud mixed with a little sugar and oil to try and beat the hunger pangs. Without action to stop the upward spiral of food prices, 100 million people around the world will face deeper poverty and hunger, and hundreds of thousands will confront famine and starvation.

In the face of this suffering, we cannot be silent.

Last week, I asked you to send a message to President Bush and urge him to make solving this hunger crisis a priority on the G8's poverty-fighting agenda at its summit this July in Japan. Your response matched the urgency of the moment, and we smashed through our initial goal of 30,000 petition signers.

Just yesterday, we learned that Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda has sent a letter to the other seven leaders of G8 nations adding the hunger crisis on the agenda for the G8 summit. It's a critical first step and shows that our concern is being heard. Now we need to hear from President Bush and work to keep the focus on this ongoing crisis.

Help us reach our new goal of 100,000 ONE members urging President Bush to rally the G8 to take emergency action against hunger and to invest in agricultural productivity in the developing world.

By clicking the link below, you'll send the following petition to President Bush:

http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/o.pl?id=299-3352569-P2T6t8&t=2

President Bush,

The soaring cost of staple foods and the resulting hunger crisis has caused riots from Haiti to Bangladesh, threatens hundreds of thousands of people with starvation and could push one hundred million more people deeper into poverty. Please build on your recent commitment by taking immediate action to:

1) Prioritize issues of global poverty, including the world hunger crisis on the agenda of the G8 Summit this July in Japan.

2) At the summit, secure commitments for additional resources for all types of food assistance and increased agricultural productivity in developing countries.

Why are we asking the G8—the leaders of the world's eight wealthiest nations—to take action? We ask because a global crisis demands a global response, and recent history shows these leaders are in the best position to take action.

In 2005, ONE members joined millions of people from around the world in demanding that the G8 make poverty a priority at its meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland. The results were historic. A year of grassroots organizing culminated in the Gleneagles Declaration, in which the G8 committed to double development assistance to Africa by 2010.

We can recapture that energy. We've already won a critical victory by getting rising food prices and their impact on global poverty on to the summit agenda. We have the momentum and now it's time to turn that momentum into action to prevent this crisis from turning into a tragedy. By clicking the link below, you'll add your name to the more than 68,000 ONE members who have already signed the petition.

http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/o.pl?id=299-3352569-P2T6t8&t=3

The G8 can do so much good and we're holding their feet to the fire. We're asking them to keep their promise to increase development assistance to poor countries, double aid to Africa, build better health systems, fight deadly diseases, and support universal education and economic growth initiatives in agriculture and infrastructure.

But rising food prices threatens to roll-back progress in all these areas. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Robert Zoellick are sounding the warning that if immediate action isn't taken, global food shortages could set the world back seven years in the fight against extreme poverty. The developing world can't afford to lose that time.

That's why we're taking your petitions directly to the White House next week. We'll get your message to the President, but you only have one more week to make your voice heard. Click the link below to add your name to the petition.

http://www.one.org/hungercrisis/o.pl?id=299-3352569-P2T6t8&t=4

Solving this crisis requires increased resources for all types of food assistance, as well as a comprehensive plan to boost agricultural productivity in long-neglected parts of the world. When the leaders of the G8 sit down to meet this July, they'll represent the resources and technology needed to do just that. Together, we can show them that we also have the will.

Thank you,

David Lane, ONE.org