Global Food Crisis

Since this is my research topic, I just earlier today posted several links applicable to this article. It seems foolish to look up more of the exact same thing, so I hope that it will be okay to simply direct you back to the same articles, and spend the extra space discussing one or two of the “Global Food Crisis” CQ Global Researcher article’s other aspects. Which, in fact, I will be using for my paper, although I didn’t have a link for it before.

Food and water shortages are not like money shortages. Bad economic times are hard, certainly; it’s harder to purchase food and water; it’s harder to escape from poverty. But the problem implicit in food crises is that food and water are the most important substances in the world. Homelessness can be survived, even if it is dangerous. Going without food and water can kill you in a manner of days.

Because of that, it seems, at least to me, that messing with food production is one thing that really should not be played around with. In the US, there are investors who are essentially hoarding food until market prices go up—that is unacceptable. Food is not money, and expecting to make a living off the food you produce is different from playing the food market like the stock market. The US seems to be toying with poorer countries in order to make profits off their food exports. They keep high subsidies for their own farmers, but press less well-off countries to abandon their own subsidies and instead purchase US food, which is cheaper, and good for us, but makes these countries dependent on other countries and completely devastates local farmers. This seems cruel and ultimately a bad idea, although that’s just my opinion.

I would also like to address the problem with how certain types of food production seem to be pushing the world’s food supply in a downward spiral. The meat (particularly from animals like cows) industry takes up an enormous amount of energy and resources, which are, as the article discusses, not infinite. It would make for a more sustainable and healthier world if Westerners ate much less meat. However, we’re accustomed to having meat at nearly every meal. That’s a problem, but there are others like it with trickier answers than “cut back on meat consumption.” African countries are clamoring for factories to produce things like Plumpynut, which is a peanut-butter-like substance which can keep children fed and healthy for very little money. Not only would such factories help feed malnourished children and thus help the hunger problem, but they would also create jobs and help make the areas more economically healthy. The article didn’t mention it, but most factories, especially in developing countries, can’t help but create enormous amounts of pollution and CO2. Similarly, producing more food requires more land, which, according to the Brazilian official quoted, would require clearing acres upon acres of rainforest. Pollution and CO2 emissions and the destruction of forests are linked to climate change, and, as is discussed in the sidebar articles dealing with climate change and its challenges, climate change is NOT good for food production, and can lead to water scarcity and problems like more frequent natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, etc.), which devastate crops. So, in the long run, is producing food going to be a losing battle?

One more question related to that: experts said in this article that globalized food is how hunger is solved. However, is that sustainable? It takes an awful lot of fuel to transport food around the world, and we have a finite supply of fossil fuels—and there are obviously food/fuel problems with using immense amounts of biofuel to transport food around the world.