As your constituent, I am writing to urge you to support international hunger relief for countries around the world that need assistance to prevent acute and chronic hunger.

There are more than 850 million chronically hungry people in the world, most of them women and children. Every year, 10 million people die of hunger - more than TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS combined; one child every five seconds. Chronic hunger is a humanitarian crisis. It is poverty in its most extreme form, where people cannot meet their basic human right to enough food. Chronic hunger can lead to illness, lower productivity and a decrease in a person's overall wellbeing. Each of these, in turn, can threaten the global economy and U.S. national security.

We live in an era of unparalleled national prosperity. There is enough food in the world to feed its 6.5 billion inhabitants. Now we need the political will to make it happen.

In 2000, the United States, along with all of the world's governments, adopted the Millennium Development Goals as a blueprint for building a better world in the 21st century, all by the target date of 2015. The first of these goals is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Currently, we are not on track.

Keep our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals and increase U.S. support for international hunger relief.