China has big problem with its food production and providing it for its people. People have resorted to rice husks, hemp leaves, grass soup, toads, rats, body lice, and even their own dead. Many moves toward industrialization have put China behind in its production of food for its people. These moves toward industrialization have taken farmers off their fields and into industrial factories. The result is cropland disappearing and water becoming scarce in some areas. China’s huge population increases by about 15 million each year, even with one child per family. China’s booming economy has made some people wealthy enough to pay off government restrictions of one child per family.
China has been trying to solve this problem in many ways. It has put a restriction on the number of children a family can have, which is one. This for some families who are wealthy enough isn’t a problem. China has also looked to importing food, but this has had a dramatic effect on the world’s trade prices. If China continues to import food the international prices will skyrocket resulting in developing countries being unable to import food. In addition to importing food China has also been researching and developing so called “super rice”. This “super rice” has an increased amount of seeds on it when it matures. Thus increasing food production. The “super rice” is supposed to increase production by some 20 percent.
If China’s problem keeps increasing and China can’t figure out a way to support itself they may have to turn to importing. This can have a dramatic effect on the rest of world. China may begin importing a lot of its food, which can drive up trade prices. The result is developing countries won’t be able to import food due to lacking of funds. Also if China keeps developing its “super rice” this may help the rest of the world by being able to increase production by 20 - 25 percent. This is a very interesting thing for many countries especially for those countries that are still young and could use the increase in production.
There are a lot of things that I have learned from this article. I now know that some of China’s people have been resorting to eating their own dead to survive, due to food shortages.
After the People’s Republic of China was established several factors such as improved sanitation and medicine led to a rapid population increase. Initially, the population growth was considered to be an economic boom [2] because before it occurred the county had faced a century of wars and epidemics. However, by 1962, China started to promote the use of birth control. Later, in 1979 China was faced with a population that was growing out of control[3], and the government decided that in order to combat the extreme population that they needed to take action. Thus, the Chinese government decided to implement a one child policy.
In communist China, prior to the population boom, more people meant more manpower to create more economic prospects for the communist nation. The communist government condemned birth control and banned imports of contraceptives (Attane, 2002). Lack of birth control, and government encouragement led China into a time of vast population increase. Hundreds of millions of extra children were born in a baby boom that sent the birth rate soaring to 5.8 children per couple, a level considered unsustainable (Cai & Lavely, 2003). With an increasingly growing population, food sources began to become depleted, and soon it became clear that the rate of reproduction needed to be decreased. To begin, government propaganda cropped up, pushing the sloga...
China’s attempt at making the lives of their people better simply does nothing but put them in unnecessary pain. The law is cruel and unjust and should have never been put in affect. The one child policy was established in 1979, in an attempt to regulate the out of control population increase. In 1979, when the policy was adopted, the population in China was over 950 million people. Today, in the year 2000, the population has skyrocketed to over 1.3 billion people (Gilmore np ). China is extremely overcrowded and is continuing to grow.Statistics show China’s population is growing at rate where they are eventually going to run out of places to house and feed their people.
China is the world’s most populated country with an astounding 1.35 billion people. That number would be significantly higher if it wasn’t for the family planning policy put into effect September 25th, 1980 under Chairman Mao. This was a population control effort and was considered extremely successful to the Chinese government. However success is defined differently in many countries. In America for instance it usually ends with a positive outcome. The cons of this attempt of controlling the population heavily outweigh the pros. The problem of over-population manifested into economic tragedy. Crime rate, gender gap, forced abortions, and mass suicide are primary problems that stem from the population control efforts of the one child policy.
Throughout centuries, China has been battling with overpopulation, one of the biggest issues that the nation has been faced with, forcing the government to enforce the one-child policy. The desire to control the rapidly growing population dates back to the Mao Zedong era where the population number was at a ripe 602 million people (Stycos, 1989). He believed that with every mouth comes "two hands". What he did not realize at the time was that too many mouths bring hardship, poverty, and paucity of food supplies. In 1979, the Chinese government decided to enforce a policy that would help minimize the growth of their population (McDonald, 1996). The one-child policy was what they thought would solve the problem. Married couples would have to sign an agreement known as the one-child certificate. This certificate served as a contract between the couple and the Chinese Government stating that the couples and the one child that they have will be granted economic and educational advantages in return for promising not to have more than one child (Audubon, 1994). Since each couple is allowed one child, the gender of that child determines whether or not it stays in China as part of the family.
In the United States, Food is one of the basic needs of life.We tend to spend tons of money every year to buy food. Consuming food reflects America’s culture in the United States. In America, Fast food is a way to enjoy delicious food made with sugar, fat and salt. It’s impossible to back away from eating good tasting food. Unfortunately, this is leading to major destruction. In the human life, food procurement, preparation, and consumption have devoted to an art form.Spite the terms of “America has a food problem,” it shows that our nation is unable to produce and supply safe, nutritious food in a way where it sustains our global population. Health Issues are a result of over consumption, which lead to portion sizes, and food production.
The one-child policy has caused many more issues than it has solved. The restrictions people must follow are causing a lot of the problems. One of the issues is that China will not relax the policy (Olesen 1). By limiting urban families to one child in a family, China is trying to conserve their natural resources and control the population (Olesen 1). The policy has prevented over 400 million births (MacLeod 1). Before conceiving, parents must obtain a birth permit from the government. Under the permit, married couples are allowed to have one child. If they want to have another one, they must apply for permission and must meet certain regulations and conditions (Dewey 4). In China, families who have more than one child are frowned upon. They pay higher tuition, higher daycare fees, higher tax penalties and are faced with discrimination (Dewey 5). Banners hung all around China’s countryside read, “Give birth to fewer babies, plant more trees” and “If you give birth to extra children, your family will be ruined” (Demick 2). Parents who give birth to more children could also be charged a compensation fee for every kid. On the other hand, families who follow the one-child policy are given preferential treatment for jobs, housing and maternity leaves (Dewey 5). There are many regulatio...
American society has grown so accustomed to receiving their food right away and in large quantities. Only in the past few decades has factory farming come into existence that has made consuming food a non guilt-free action. What originally was a hamburger with slaughtered cow meat is now slaughtered cow meat that’s filled with harmful chemicals. Not only that, the corn that that cow was fed with is also filled with chemicals to make them grow at a faster rate to get that hamburger on a dinner plate as quickly as possible. Bryan Walsh, a staff writer for Time Magazine specializing in environmental issues discusses in his article “America’s Food Crisis” how our food is not only bad for us but dangerous as well. The word dangerous could apply to many different things though. Our food is dangerous to the consumer, the workers and farmers, the animals and the environment. Walsh gives examples of each of these in his article that leads back to the main point of how dangerous the food we are consuming every day really is. He goes into detail on each of them but focuses his information on the consumer.
A population control method that has achieve environmental sustainability is China’s one-child-policy which was incorporated into Chinese society in 1990 which made is compulsory that mothers only have one child. The policy was incorporated because the government realized that if birth rates stayed the same, as they were pre-1990, then the country would head into famine. The policy resulted in 400 million fewer births and averted the famine. The population policy that the Chinese took on did achieve environmental sustainability because as China develops economically, their population will require a larger ecological footprint; and with one tenth of china’s 120 million hectares of arable land contaminated, the reduction of population benefited the country environmentally and led to slower and more sustainable development. Economists have viewed the one-child policy, as a necessary regulation to control what was China’s exponential population growth, which helped relieve resource scarcity, water supply, renewable energy sources, and environmental pollution.
China’s communist party created this policy in 1979 and has prevented over 400 million births with the use of forced abortions and sterilizations like Uzbekistan. In January of 2016, this policy has been changed into a two-child policy due to a realization that there can be an economic consequence to the failing birth-rate. Also, due to the fact that couples can only have one child, the future of China’s population can be a burden. Researchers stated, “The graying population will burden health care and social services, and the world’s second-largest economy will struggle to maintain its growth (Jiang, Steven)”. With the lack of production for more newborns, the population will gradually have a majority of elderly people within their society. The new population policy made add an increase in population, but it still puts a limit on the population. If couples had this policy lifted, it can make the overpopulation problem occur again. Therefore, this transition from one child to two children helps balance out under-population and overpopulation in
The United States Department of Agriculture defines food unsecurity as the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food, or the ability to acquire such food, is limited or uncertain for a household. Food insecurity also does not always mean that the household has nothing to eat. More simply stated it is the struggle to provide nutritional food for ones family and/or self. The people that suffer from food insecurity are not all living below the poverty line. In 2012 49.0 million people were considered food insecure in the United States of those 46.5 million were in poverty (Hunger & Poverty Statistics, 2012). For some individual’s food insecurity is only a temporary situation for others it maybe for extended period. Food insecurity due temporary situation such as unemployment, divorce, major medical or illness can be become more long term. The vast majority of these are families with children.
China has an area of 9.6 million square kilometers and a coastline of 18,000 kilometers (Network Center of MOFCOM, 2004). It has a population of 1,401,586,609 people as of 2015 (Worldometers, 2015). In China they tend to eat a lot of the same foods. Some of the local food consists of rice, noodles, fish, vegetables and meats (Parkinson, 2011). “China is described as a collectivist country because it “emphasizes the needs and goals of the group as a whole over the needs and wishes of each individual ().” “Upholding a stable and harmonious society has been viewed as the most important role of ethics (Werth, 2013).”
In order to solve the overpopulation issue, the government should pay great attention to it. Some policies, such as “ One China policy”, have already been made in China. They have already paid off. For instance, in 1994, the natural growth rate was 11.21‰, but in 1999 it was only 8.77‰ (SFPCC statics). However, China still has a long way to go in this aspect, for the overpopulation is still serious now, just like what have been mentioned in the previous paragraphs.
Meat also consumes food resources in a shockingly inefficient way: it takes 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef, and 4kg for pork. But each kilo of grain may need a ton of water. And fuel oil is needed throughout the process, to fertilize the grain, pump water and to transport it.
There are those that believe our planet has reached its maximum capacity to sustain humanity and we need to reduce our population to rectify it. It is also said that our planet is well capable of providing both the nutrition and caloric needs for humanity, both now and into the future as well. Regardless of where one’s opinion of the facts fall between these two arguments, global food security is not where it should be. Uneven development could be argued to be a cause of this. But it is not the only issue affecting the planet.