On Monday, as reports of rioting over food prices continued to come in from around the world, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino pointed out that the United States contributed more than $2 billion in food aid last year, more than any other nation. That's laudable. But to put things in perspective, $2 billion is about what the United States spends each week on the war in Iraq, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

To his credit President Bush wants to do more to help nations struggling to cope with drastically increased prices for the staff of life, cooking oil and grains like corn, wheat and rice. That's the right thing to do for humanitarian reasons, but it's also a smart policy that could win friends and stave off the civil unrest that is making governments unstable and fueling wars. But aid alone won't be enough. Food and fuel policies will have to change.

Food prices in many nations have roughly doubled over the pst three years, according to the World Bank. Unrest has spread across much of Africa. In Haiti, food riots led to the ouster of the nation's prime minister and killed the tourist industry. In Egypt, it has sparked protests that resulted in mass arrests. So far, the United Nations reports, food shortages have created political unrest in 36 countries and prompted Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to call for a reconsideration of the use of food crops to produce biofuels. Burning corn in cars takes food out of poor people's mouths.

Scores of aid organizations are struggling to raise funds to buy and deliver food where it's needed most. Donating to them, or simply playing the online vocabulary game at freerice.com, where every correct answer sends five grains of rice to someone in the developing world, saves lives. But private charity won't solve the problem. Just look close to home in the pantries of local food banks where shelves are often bare despite pleas for help.

Some problems can't be fixed easily, quickly or, perhaps, at all. Increasingly wealthy nations like China and India will continue to consume more grain in the form of meat and burn more gas. Droughts will come and go, but climatologists believe weather extremes that interfere with agriculture will increase in frequency and intensity as a result of global warming. But some changes can be made quickly.

The United States and other nations must massively increase food aid in the short run to prevent widespread starvation and the collapse of civil order. In the long run, reducing global hunger will take policy changes. The use of food crops for fuel should be abandoned as a dead end. The subsidies for agribusiness in America and elsewhere that allow corporations and gigantic farms to put farmers in developing nations out of business should be ended.

To really address the problem, developed nations must not simply give the poor a fish but rather teach them how to fish. It's time for another "green revolution" that gives poor nations the tools and technology to grow enough food in an environmentally sound manner to feed their populations. Food aid will never solve the problem, but it must be increased now to assuage suffering and buy time to allow long-term solutions to grow and bear fruit.