Free Rice--Helping Feed the World's Poor

[Brownian Motion]

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

[jazzypaul]

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

I don't know, but if it is, somebody just got 1200 grains of rice.

[vibes]

I got bored at 540 grains. 10 grains per word seems so paltry, considering the fact that rice isn't that expensive.

[Brownian Motion]

I can't help feeling that the explanation given at the site does not explain everything--that there are academics watching over the results, evaluating, stroking their chins...

[Chuck Nessa]

Is this about freeing CondoLeaser?

[BERIGAN]

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

I don't know, but if it is, somebody just got 1200 grains of rice.

2330, for me...guess I just have a bigger heart than you....

No really, I must!

[Brownian Motion]

washingtonpost.com

What's the Word? We Can Help Feed the Hungry.

Sunday, November 4, 2007; N02

What if just knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? Well, at FreeRice ( http://www.freerice.com) it does. Go to the site, which launched last month, and you'll see a word and four definitions. Choose the right meaning and the site's advertisers will donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program, a United Nations agency that is the world's largest humanitarian organization. Keep on guessing (the quiz gets progressively more arduous, not to mention vexatious), and for each correct answer 10 more grains of rice will head to people who need it.

Now, admittedly, 10 grains is a piddling amount. But the totals have grown exponentially. On Oct. 7, the day the site launched, 830 grains of rice were donated. Barely a bowlful. Eight days later, the total was 6,403,920. And when this article went to press, 537,163,380 grains of rice had been donated. That's more than 14 metric tons. Not bad for a month's worth of people figuring out definitions. Want a sample? Okay, does the word "pettifogger" mean a mine entrance, an unscrupulous lawyer, avoidance or potpourri?

The site is the brainchild of John Breen, a 50-year-old computer programmer from Bloomington, Ind., who has tackled hunger online before, first with the Hunger Site ( http://www.thehungersite.com) and, earlier this year, with the launch of Poverty.com, a poverty awareness site that he hopes people will visit to learn about helping to get more funding for international poverty relief.

"I wanted to have something fun to do that wasn't just a waste of time and had some vaguely redeeming value," Breen says with a laugh. He decided on the vocabulary quiz -- and entered all 10,000 words and definitions himself -- after watching his son preparing for the SAT.

"It's hard to get people to read about hunger and poverty," Breen says. "It's kind of depressing, so I had to think of an entertaining way to draw people in. Hopefully, they'll also click on to Poverty.com and find out what needs to be done."

Oh, and if in your clicking you come across "pettifogger," it means unscrupulous lawyer. Yeah, it's sort of cheating to tell you, but it's for a good cause.

-- Joe Heim

[Spontooneous]

Every time you get a word right, a child is forced to measure 10 grains of rice into a thimble.

[MoGrubb]

It's nice if it's on the level. If so, they just got a few tablespoonfuls of rice from me.

You know, we could bankrupt all the rice farmers with this neverending quiz. What say we get some financial revenge on them chineymen?

Whodda quessed a fandango is a dance...It's so obvious that it's hidden, first cousin to the tango(?).

[Christiern]

Is this about freeing CondoLeaser?

That's what I thought, at first. I had high hopes that she had finally been put away.

Oh, well.

[Guy Berger]

Props to the guy that came up with it, and also to the WFP, which does a lot of good, but I wish some of these resources would get diverted to cash aid -- in all but the most dire circumstances it's superior to food aid.

Guy

[Aggie87]

Except that monetary aid is more likely to get re-directed for other ends, wittingly or not. At least the risk is there. And there can be alot of hidden admin fees that suck up the money. You'd be surprised at the amount of your dollar that goes to overhead/admin costs when you make donations to charities in this country.

[Guy Berger]

Aggie,

1) I agree with you that cash can be diverted. But so can food aid -- and in fact, food aid is notorious for being diverted to undeserving recipients.

2) Overhead is likely to be worse when moving around sacks of food.

3) Food aid can disrupt agricultural markets by lowering local produce prices.

Cash aid is usually superior because it lets the poor figure out what they need most; in many cases, hunger happens not because markets don't exist, but because the poor can't afford to buy food.

Food aid is probably superior in extreme emergencies when markets are completely dysfunctional -- that is, even if you gave the hungry money, they will not be able to buy food because there is none to be had (at least in the short run). There are also paternalistic arguments against giving cash, but I am pretty skeptical about them when it comes to developing countries.