The world's most pressing concern: terrorism? global warming? the "credit crunch"? No, no, and no. Its hunger and poverty , stupid

Its very sad that it takes people rioting in the streets across the world against high food prices and poverty for anyone to sit up and take notice. Well at least quite a few have now. We need to realise that this should be our most pressing global and moral concern. Which ever way you look at it: wasted human capital, global instability, death, starvation, reactionary extremism: we need to think about, and sustainably help the 950 million remaining people living on under a dollar a day and the billions facing hunger due to current food prices. Nothing, repeat nothing is more important than this.
Terrorism is not a threat to the lives and livelihoods of billions.
Global warming will be slowed or stopped either by innovation (and more human capital would be bloody useful for that, as would more productive economies in the developing world so that high tech economies can concentrate on their comparative advantage) or by the whole world shutting up shop and the end of civilization as we know it. Now I know which I prefer. But, lets say that the apocalyptic second option is the only one available. Then its morally abhorrent to prevent African farmers from growing food, because of tariffs, subsidies, and concern over food miles in the industrialized world. If you eco-freaks think we really need to change the way we live, and exit civilization, then we in the west have to do it fairly. We have been the beneficiaries of the destruction of our planet (assuming it is happening), so its pretty bloody rich moaning about out of season fruit or other pseudo-ethical crap. Let's not pull up the ladder. Its wrong, hypocritical, and repugnant.
As for the credit crunch, chill out, it might be nasty, people will lose their jobs, default on their mortgages, and see their investments go sour. But, the market will rebound. We just collectively miscalculated the optimal allocation of capital. Bad, yes. Globally disastrous and irreconcilable, no.
So lets campaign to:
a. open trade barriers for agricultural products. This is especially important for trade within the developing world. The "bugger they neighbour" strategy really buggers everyone.
b. end, or at least substantially cut farming subsidies in the developing world which focus on production, not preservation. It is imperative to look after our countryside but we don't need to fund an inefficient sector at home, so that people can starve and live in poverty abroad. Even if you don't give a shit about farmers in the developing world being swamped with excess American rice, or EU produce, leaving whole communities living in self-pepetuating poverty, it makes your shopping more expensive. That's right. A jaunt to Tescos would be cheaper without subsidies and with freer trade.
c. stop the hypocrisy of stopping, via the IMF, developing countries subsidizing their industries in the name of the free market and then doing it at home ourselves.
d. limit non tariff barriers to imported agricultural produce such as the famous curvyness of a banana EU regulation. Of course, western governments and supranational orginisations need to have some regulation to protect their consumers. They should do, not penalise them by enforcing higher prices while damaging the developing world.
e. restart the fucking Doha round of trade negotiations.
f. allow GM crops and other farming innovations to continue to push down the price of food. It is this constant increase in agricultural productivity which is the cause of almost everything you hold dear. Without it there would be little or no sedantry society in the first place, no art, literature, philosophy, music, long life expectancies, confort, freedom from poverty for billions. We can not let it stop for a few misguided concerns and well meaning but flawed pseudo-ethicalism.
g. boycott any company which promotes itself as only selling UK agricultural produce (I obviously don't mean Aberdeen Angus should be imported - I mean places like Pret). Its designed to assuage the guilt of the middle classes in the developed world who think they are helping global warming, even though they emit shed loads of carbon in their daily lives.
h. create a culture supportive of agricultural innovation. This might mean playing around with genetics, something we have done for 1000s of years, in a more nuanced and exact manner. This may mean high rise farms and all many of other disquieting things. Change is scary. Understand it. If its good, get used to it. If its not, explain why, don't start talking about rabbit-human crossbreeds.
i. win the debate so more people like Dominic Lawson start writing about the solutions to global hunger.

This list is just a start, but its a good one. Of course the developing world has a plethora of other problems, especially Africa, ranging from predatory elites, to disease, to ethnic conflict, and beyond. I am not saying the nine things to be campaigned for are sufficient, but there are necessary.

This is an issue which should affect every single person on the planet.