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Solutions to food insecurity in the united states
Issue of world hunger
Solutions to food insecurity in the united states
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In Lester R. Brown's novel Full Planet, Empty Plates, the issue of food scarcity is explained through an environmental perspective. He begins the novel by addressing the issue of the world's high demand for crops, such as grain, and the stress it places on farmers to keep up with the increase in demand. In a time where there is a significant water shortage, higher temperatures, and eroding soils, food scarcity should be at the top of everyone's agenda. Brown poses the question whether or not food scarcity will be our civilization's "weak link" in terms of survival. He demonstrates how food security is a serious issue across the globe. As supply decreases, demand increases, thus raising the price of food. Unlike global resources such as oil, …show more content…
Brown makes it clear that food scarcity can lead to immoral behavior and global conflict. "We are entering a time of chronic food scarcity, one that is leading to intense competition for control of land and water resources-in short, some new geopolitics of food" (Brown 14). In the following chapters, Brown discusses how population growth creates a demand that is higher than the "economy's natural support systems" (Brown 17). As a population of people climb the social ladder, they tend to consume more grain-intensive products such as beef and poultry. This in itself boosts the demand for grain substantially. Additionally, the he addresses how a good portion of our nation's grain is going to ethanol to fuel cars. Thus, forming a debate on whether or not we should use food to fuel our vehicles. The book's statistics estimate that the percentage of grain used for ethanol is equivalent to feeding 400 million people. This statistic really put things into perspective for me. We have the resources to alleviate this issue, yet it is being used to fill the pockets of wealthy corporate CEOs. Brown provides solutions that will alleviate the food scarcity problem on a global level. He argues that there is no need to use food to fuel cars when hybrid/plug-in electric cars are on the market. Additionally, he argues that we can stabilize the climate by taking a huge cut in carbon emissions. However, caring and making real changes to preserve the environment and food security would mean that major corporate greed would take a major hit. Throughout the novel, Brown states that this is a major issue that is affecting us now, and we have no other choice but to make serious changes in our lifestyles and join efforts that enforce legal restrictions on major oil companies whose only interest is to make a profit off the
Humans are damaging the planet to live comfortably, we must change the way food is distributed worldwide, support local farmers and switch to a healthier diet in order to stop global warming. The current global has been getting better for us humans over the years, from eating bread and eggs 3 times a day in the XV century, now we can eat better than the kings of those times, however the much of the food in not healthy and the global food system still fails in getting food to every individual in the planet and in addition it contributes to the destruction of our world. Ms. Anna Lappe explains how the food system contributes to around 1/3 of the global warming issue in her essay “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork”, while a group of Plos one explains the issues about the export and import of food growth over the last 50 years in the
In Raj Patel’s novel Stuffed and Starved, Patel goes through every aspect of the food production process by taking the experiences of all the people involved in food production from around the world. Patel concludes by eventually blaming both big corporations and governments for their critical role in undermining local, cultural, and sustainable foodways and in so doing causing the key food-related problems of today such as starvation and obesity. In this book of facts and serious crime, Patel's Stuffed and Starved is a general but available analysis of global food struggles that has a goal of enlightening and motivating the general Western public that there is something critically wrong with our food system.
Food Security can be seen as a wicked problem, because it has no stopping rule as it can be linked to natural resource depletion and climate change and is also therefore multi-causal. The European Commission believes that the problem will become worse due to their projected 70% increase in food demand by 2050, as a result of a growing population and changing diets (Freibauer, et. al. 2011)
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.
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...
"The World Food Crisis." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Ed. Arthur. S. Brisbane. NY Times, 10 Apr. 2008. Web. 09 Jan. 2012. .
In African context, the root cause of food insecurity is suggested to be the accessibility and affordability of food due to large margins of poverty. Today most Africans in the horn of Africa live by very low monetary value. It makes it hard for prioritizing and as food is basic, one meal a day is considered fine while others try to push it to two meals in a day, nutritional value is a jargon for another day. This brings less productivity individually, nationally and internationally as developing states progress very slow.
This definition of Food Security came about at The World Food Summit of 1996, which was held in response to the growing problem of under nutrition and doubts as to whether agricultural methods, used at the time, had the capacity to feed the growing global population. Most recently, the World Summit on Food Security 2009 recognised that the problem of world hunger has worsened, wi...
Vivero Pol, Jose Luis., (2013) “Why Food Should be a Commons not a Commodity”, Our World Brought to you by United Nations University, 16 October, http://ourworld.unu.edu/en/why-food-should-be-a-commons-not-a-commodity
The recent global spike in food prices represents an underlying shift in the supply and demand of food world-wide. Since 2005, the price of a barrel of oil has tripled from 40 dollars to 120 dollars, this drives up the costs of the transportation and storage inputs of agriculture and the products themselves, and the cost of production
...organisms, possibly at the expense of sustaining the world’s food system. Wars in developing countries fight for land and water rights to feed themselves, in today’s world. There are areas in the United States were degradation has occurred, water and resources are running out, perhaps fighting for resources has occurred, and will continue in the future. A growing demand for natural resources is widespread, and necessary for life. To no surprise, there is resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and unsustainable consumption that contribute to conflict and war, predicted for the population explosion and poverty. Most do not know the ravages, and gnawing feeling of hunger, and the developed countries should utilize modern technology to feed those in poverty.
A rapid increasing population of people develops an even faster increasing population of people that go hungry each day. Agriculturists are continuing to improve their techniques for a constant change in technology to keep up with the growing population. How do we solve this problem? Many think it is as simple as growing more food; but simply growing more food is not so easy. To grow the abundant amount of food that will be need to feed the 9 billion people in 2050 will take: time, patience, education, and everyone working together. The average american is now 3 generations removed from the family farm. What do we as agriculturist do about this? We have to educate the unknown on the good in agriculture to abolish stereotypes of agriculturist.
The food crisis is, above all, a warning sign of the strains that face a planet of 6.6 billion people. "We've essentially been asleep at the switch in this country, not thinking of what it means to be on a crowded planet, with rising demand, scarce natural resources, more climate change," says Sachs. If nothing else, those supermarket prices now sending shock waves across the world will be a wake-up call of the need to look hard for solutions to a food crisis that the world shares.
Since climate change and its impacts on households food security are multifaceted and complex. Thus, exploring such situations demand the use of mix of theories for better understanding of the problem and look for solutions to the respective geographical settings. This section briefly describes theories to be applied. Despite the concept ‘food security’ was emerged at the beginning of the 1970s, famine and malnutrition have a long history in human life. Consequently, from the time of Malthus different scholars have developed theories to explain famine.
The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other (Berger). It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Right now, it seems as if society is blind to the fact that we are causing a major food scarcity simply by overusing the resources that we have. There are different factors that are contributing to the issue of food scarcity. According to Lester Brown, “we are entering a time of chronic food scarcity, one that is leading to intense competition for control of land and water resources- in short, a new geopolitics of food” (Lester Brown). The world food situation is slowly degrading. Grain stocks have dropped to a dangerously low level. The World Food Price Index has doubled in a decade. The ranks of the hungry are expanding. Political unrest is spreading. On the demand side of the food equation, there will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night. And some 3 billion increasingly wealthy people are moving up the food chain, consuming livestock and poultry products that are so dependent on grains. At the same time, water shortages and heat waves are making it more difficult for farmers to keep pace with demand. And with temperatures changing, the seasons are getting shorter. As those countries that are grain exporting begin to ban exports to keep their food prices down, countries that typically receive those exports are panicking. In response, they are buying large tracts of land in other countries to grow food for themselves. Ultimately, the biggest problem is trying to make sure that society is aware of the concept of food and the affect that climate change has on food and whether it is more imp...