“Almost a billion people are going hungry, while we waste one third of the food we produce.” (FAO. 2013). Food security refers to the long-term availability and its availability, stability, access, and utilization. Issues that surround food security such as climate change and food sovereignty are debatably wicked problems. A wicked problem refers to a complex, persistent or reoccurring and hard to resolve issue due to its links to broader social, economic and policy issues, (Ahmed S. Khana. 2010) characterised by their lack of definitive solution, uniqueness and complex attachment to other wicked problems. Firstly, we will explore both sides of food sovereignty and businesses impact on food security. Secondly, we will outline the impact of climate change on food security and different business responses
The influence of food sovereignty on food security can be a positive for the consumers and businesses. Food sovereignty refers to the domination and/or monopolization of the food industry by transnational cooperation’s (TNCs). Agriculture such as the farming of soybeans in Brazil has provided the country with significant capital and employment. Companies such as Archer-Daniels-Midland Co, the largest soybeans exporter in Brazil, have created both an increase income and employment (Brazil’s soybean production will rise 4 million tonnes to 88 million tonnes in 2013-2014. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)) Due to it’s large economies of scale operation. (Shruti Date Singh 2013& Altieri, Miguel A 2009)
However, the influence of food sovereignty also creates a number of issues, the large scale operation of TNCs and unsustainable practices are damaging the dynamic equilibrium of ecosystems and increase potential for natural disaster, such...
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(Triple Pundit. Climate Change News: Tesla and SolarCity Partner to Provide Energy Storage for Commercial Buildings. 2013. Climate Change News: Tesla and SolarCity Partner to Provide Energy Storage for Commercial Buildings. 10/03/14 )
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132). With the production of food at such a large scale, the issue of uniformity is called into question. The industry revolves around making food so it is easier to produce. The uniformly and scale of farming can enable a person with the intent to do harm to affect a large percent of food in a small attack (Pehanich 2006). With this attack and having uniformly in food making at one place it can put a person out of business since all they produce is affect from the attack. With farms owned by a corporation, like Tyson, food can easily follow this since the company makes money by having a simple and uniform practice. This problem is only going to increase as the years go
The clock is ticking! Global Co2 emissions have increased exponentially since the industrialization of today’s developed world. Emissions have now passed the absorptive capacity of the earth and are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere, warming the surface of the earth and inducing localized climatic changes. Climate change is often a localized issue. Many regions of the world will continue to become hotter, while others may experience highly variable weather patterns. Climate change poses a serious threat to ecosystems, economic sectors, and human welfare. Although almost entirely caused by the developed world, climate change will disproportionally affect the world’s poor.
...struggling to earn any income at all and sometimes do not even get the opportunity to eat. Another issue that Raj Patel did not touch on is the lack of care consumers have for the farmers. It seems that consumers care about farmers about as much as the corporations do, which, in my opinion, is not a lot. When consumers only care about low prices and large corporations only care about making a profit, the farmers are left out to dry. Many consumers believe “food should be available at a bargain price, a belief that relies on labor exploitation and environmental exhaustion at multiple points along the commodity chain.” (Wright, 95) Corporations as well as consumers generally tend to be selfish and I think Raj Patel is afraid to mention this. If only these people cared a little bit more about each other I believe the hourglass of the food system will begin to even out.
As the world population grows and consumption per person increases, the demand for food is rising. To an extent, fossil fuels have made an increase in food production achievable, but the finite supply is rapidly depleting. Over the last 50 years, global food production has tripled (Mosier et al. 2004). Despite this, an estimated 870 million people were undernourished in 2010-2012 (FAO 2013) while in 2008, 5...
In this essay, the effects of climate change on agriculture and how to manage it shall be discussed. Climate change has and will greatly affect agriculture. As time progresses, the effects of climate change will worsen and become detrimental. Mendelsohn and Dinar (2009:1) state,” if future climate scenarios lead to a widespread reduction in food supply, there could be massive problems with hunger and starvation”. Climate change is a change in global climate patterns which is mainly caused by the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuels. The writer chose this topic because climate change is a global problem that will pose a threat to people’s lives around the world and must be dealt with sooner than later.
My definition of food sovereignty is that it is a movement to create the opportunities for people to utilize the power of nature and communities to appropriately produce their own agriculture, fishing, and food policies through a safe and organic manner. According to Why Hunger’s blog Lydia quoted on Pedal&Plow, “food sovereignty is the right of peoples, communities and countries to define their own policies regarding their seeds, agriculture, labor, food and land. These policies must be appropriate to their unique ecological, social, economic, and cultural circumstances. Food Sovereignty includes the true right to food and to produce food (Pedal).” I completely agree with the definition, not only because of what it defined was true, but also because it is what exactly what needed to be done in order to give communities a chance to create something of their
In order for us to maintain our lives, we need to consume food to supply nutrient-needs for our bodies. As the global population increased, the demand for food also increased. Increased population led to mass production of foods. However, even with this mass production, in under-developed countries, people are still undernourished. On other hand, in developed and developing countries, people are overfed and suffering from obesity. In addition, the current methods of industrial farming destroy the environment. These problems raised a question to our global food system. Will it be able to sustain our increasing global population and the earth? With this question in my mind, I decided to investigate the sustainability of our current global food system.
We live in an age in which we have come to expect everything to be instantaneously at our fingertips. We live in an age of instant coffee, instant tea, and even instant mashed potatoes. We can walk down the street at 5 in the morning and get a gallon of milk or even a weeks worth of groceries at our discretion. Even though it is great that food is now readily available at all times, this convenience comes at a price, for both the producer and the consumer. Farmers are cheated out of money and are slaves to big business, workers and animals are mistreated. And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the procedures of the instantaneous food system are left unchanged due to the obliviousness of the consumers and the dollar signs in the eyes of the government and big business. The problem begins with the mistreatment and exploitation of farmers.
Climate change is currently one of the greatest challenges facing our species. This case study report will examine issues related to food production in relation to climate change. In this regard, the focus will be on the Peace River Country, which is a parkland region that spans from northwestern Alberta to the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia and around the Peace River. As part of its examination, this report will explore the local environment conditions, and offer predictions of what lies ahead in areas of economic development, the food practices including how climate changes may affect the local food production, as well as other future and predicted changes in the area.
This final report is going to analyze the different opinions of people, who come from different nations, about the influence of climate change on food security. The research will focus on 40 students at International Pacific College (IPC). They are both males and females who come from New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam. The primary data, which was collected from the quantitative questionnaires with 21 questions, was used in this study. The main factor that will be discussed in this research is how aware people are about the influence of climate change on food security, people’s concern when they choose food and the attentiveness of people about food security. Different nationality and gender were included in this research to notice the different thoughts from people who come from different nations in the world about climate change and food security because the climates are not similar in different countries.
Food insecurity and poor nutrition is an alarmingly large problem for low income families, especially in developing countries. Many strategies exist to fight this problem, although not many of these address all the factors contributing to it along with all the possible solutions to solve it. In many cases, multiple strategies must correlate and work together so that all the determinants of this issue are addressed and can fight food insecurity from different angles. This essay will discuss the significance of the problem, a range of possible strategies to solve the problem, and go into detail on a select few that will correlate and work together to solve different factors of food insecurity and poor nutrition.
Sayers, Ian. "New Approaches to Feeding the World's Population." International Trade Forum. July-Sept. 2011: 30. Global Issues In Context. Web. 15 Oct. 2013.
Food insecurity is defined as a household-level socioeconomic issue where access to food is either limited or uncertain; hunger itself is an individual issue that may result from food insecurity. In America, the question of its citizens being hungry is a commonly addressed issue, but there seems to be no true change involved. The issue itself lies not in the fact that we don’t produce enough food, because we greatly overproduce, but in the fact that it is allocated to those who can afford to eat. The issue of societal classes further ties into the issue of food insecurity; the top one percent controls a majority of the country’s resources. The underlying question to food insecurity is how to solve it, and is it possible to develop a solution
Imagine a world with almost ten billion people, thirty percent more than the population of today, the rising standard of living in developing nations causing the global demand for food resources to skyrocket. Now, at the same time, imagine a world that has almost no way to support a population of this size. In fact, this world is slowly losing its ability to support life at all. This scenario is not a pitch for a novel set in a dystopian future, nor is it a prediction made for a time so far in the future that it can be easily ignored. This prediction will most likely come to be within the lifetimes of many alive today, researchers in the ecological field believe that this will become the reality even within the next thirty-five years if significant
Food is taken for granted by many people in places like the Western World, especially in countries like the United States. There is no fear that the next meal will be an empty plate, nor is there reason to fear that the supply of food will disappear. The reason that there is no need to ration out supplies is that the food industry mass produces food to feed their ever growing population in factory farms. However, the public is kept generally unaware of what occurs inside these farms, which calls into question the integrity of the food production. While there is an acceptance of these farms due to the convenience they provide to the consumer, there are many negative consequences related to these slaughterhouses. The mass production of food from factory farming does not justify the negative affects and threat to the environment, to the health and security of animals, nor the violation of workers’ rights.