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What are the effects of agriculture
World poverty reasons food shortage
Consequences of world food crisis
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It is evident that populations around the world are starkly staring at a food crisis that has picked momentum especially since 2008. This recent global food crisis has placed staple grains, the main sustenance for populations around the world, out of reach of the hundreds of millions of people in need of them. This has seen its effects being felt in both developed and developing countries (Magdoff, 2006: 1-7). This study will focus its attention on the explanation about this recent food crisis, how it reflects previous agri-food system tendencies and its relationship to diabetes, another food system problem. The thesis of this study is that the explanations behind the recent food crisis revolve around commercial (corporate-dependent) model of the global food system which makes food items vulnerable to market dynamics and hence out of reach for many individuals. This is relevant to the issue of food crisis since it attaches an economics perspective to the crisis which is especially significant given the recent global economic meltdown.
Theoretical Perspective
A closer and detailed look at the recent food crisis reveals a number of patterns and insights that can be supported by theoretical perspectives to show that it is a consequence of the established food policy. First of all, the food crisis does not necessarily stem from low production since the advent of chemical and biological technology in food production makes the processes more optimized. Instead, it is due to shifting economic and political power throughout the stages of food production and distribution. Emphasis is being placed on food production and distribution in terms of where maximum profitability will be achieved. This can be seen in situations where bumper harv...
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...cal perspectives given to the effect that a corporate-dependent system in the agri-food sector precipitated the global food crisis which is the thesis of this study. This demonstrated through empirical evidence indicating that production of grain is actually sufficient, but then gets diverted to other uses such as biofuel production and feeding animals to meet the rising consumption of meat. This places the blame squarely on the retailers who happen to be strong corporate entities resulting from capitalistic inclination. A strange phenomenon is observed where southern states in the USA are experiencing higher rates of obesity, which is still linked to corporatization of the food system. The limitations of this research center on the fact that it did not seek information from the corporate world which could perhaps give perspectives from the other side of the coin.
It is difficult to understand how a country with so much wealth has fifty million people who do not know where their next meal is coming from. These people are not just the homeless; many are working class people who just do not earn enough to feed their families every day from one payday to the next. The directors present validation and ethical implications for the argument that food insecurity is not caused by a scarcity of food; it is caused by poverty and the government’s policies which are
Many policies on farm and agriculture has impacted the way food is grown in America. For example hedge funds, described in page 11 of Foodopoly have essentially driven the prices of land in America and worldwide. This has resulted in farmers having to either cut down costs and make due with lesser land, or be forced out of business. Along with pollution to environment, this policy along with many others results in the situation described in page 12, with lesser farmers working to supply the nation (from 6.8 million to under 1 million). Most often, farmers sell their products are low prices to pay off land that is priced higher...
ABSTRACT: It has often been observed that obesity follows a socioeconomic gradient which adversely affects the poor. This paper proposes the outline of a sociological theory of obesity as a consequence of ‘globalisation factors, such as labour market deregulation. Forced to work longer hours – and with lower levels of job-security – workers in low paid jobs have fewer opportunities to burn calories, and are more likely to consume fast-food. This combination has led to higher levels of obesity among the poor in countries that have adopted neo-liberal labour market reforms.
There is no doubt that obesity has taken its seat as one of the top disease that strikes the world today. In America, obesity has now spread through the country leaving 2 out of 3 adults either overweight or obese, and worldwide 1.5 billion are overweight or obese (Overweight). The cause of this disease stems from multiple reasons such as the increase in modern food production, putting out ample amounts of food causing the prices for meat, groceries, and especially junk food to plummet. Subsequently, Americans especially were more inclined to purchase more food and showed an increase in the average American house hold food intake by 1,000 more calories a day (Dreifus).
Walsh, Bryan. “America’s Food Crisis.” NEXUS. Eds. Kim and Michael Flachmann. Boston: Pearson, 2012. 166 – 173. Print.
Imagine a world where a school aged child can step out of their school and walk into a McDonalds. A world where soda companies make millions of dollars a year by placing soda machines in schools. A world where 30.5 percent of adults are considered obese. A world where obesity is killing more people than smoking. What if I told you this world is not in your imagination but is the world we live in today?
The book The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food, by Wayne Roberts introduces us to the concept of “food system”, which has been neglected by many people in today’s fast-changing and fast-developing global food scene. Roberts points out that rather than food system, more people tend to recognize food as a problem or an opportunity. And he believes that instead of considering food as a “problem”, we should think first and foremost about food as an “opportunity”.
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
In his book there are a few main points discussed by Patel. One of them is that he focuses in on the huge food corporations and describes how they act as bottlenecks in the global food distribution system. What he means by bottlenecks is that there is a massive number of producers and consumers, but between the producers and consumers are only a few dominating processors and distributors that dominate their section of the food industry (21). Patel also tells us that we want to think that we make our own choices when we decide what to eat, but it is actually the complete opposite. A second purpose of the book is to determine the epidemics of starvation and obesity, and how they are connected. Patel claims that the people who are stuffed – by that he means obese – are actually starving because they are eating empty calories that make them fat, but don’t provide any nutrition.
Stuffed and Starved brings to light the uneven hourglass shape that exists within our world’s food system, and describes what factors contribute to these discrepancies. It begins with the decisions farmers are forced to make on the farm, and ends with the decisions the consumers are able to make at the grocery stores. The purpose of Stuffed and Starved was to describe what factors attribute to the hourglass shape of the food system. Author Raj Patel points out who is profiting and who is suffering in this system, and gives insight as to how the system may be improved.
Food production has many challenges to address: CO2 emissions, which are projected to increase by two-thirds in the next 20 years, as the global food production increases so does the number of people going hungry, with the number of urban hungry soaring. The environmental issues are not the only ones to face; politics and economic globalization take also the big part in the food world. These days agriculture and food politics has been going through many changes but mostly under the influence of its consumers; back in the days people wanted as little as safety, variety and low costs of food. Now consumers demanding way more – greater freshness, nutritional value, less synthetic chemicals, smaller carbon footprint and less harm to animals. And that’s the time when urban agriculture emerged quite rapidly delivering locally grown and healthy food. Within the political arena, there are a few still in charge of defending the conventional food industries and commercial farms to retain the upper level. Against the hopes of nutrition activists, farm animal welfare defenders, and organic food promoters, the food and agriculture sector is moving towards greater consolidation and better sustainability. Although in social and local terms, food-growing activists know their role is under attack. Caught two words in the middle, is it possible to satisfy both?
in fact, higher unemployment, lower household assets, and certain demographic characteristics also lead to a lack of nutritious food.” what Feeding America is saying is that in the United States the reason for the lack of food is from a number of issues like the loss of a job, the prices on food, these things can significantly affect the poor and hungry. When prices rise, consumers often shift to cheaper, less-nutritious foods, make the risks of micronutrient deficiencies (the lack of essential vitamins and minerals required in small amounts by the body for proper growth and development) and other forms of malnutrition, which can have long-term unfavorable effects on people’s health, development and productivity.
There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...
Living standards before the drought were poor. Since 1984 at least sixty major food crisis occurred in E...
The growing world population is demanding more and different kinds of food. Rapid economic growth in many developing countries has pushed up consumers' purchasing power, generated rising demand for food, and shifted food demand away from traditional staples and toward higher-value foods like meat and milk.