One of the major reasons experts believe we have global food crisis is the unexpected weather changes that are presented during the year. The prices of food tend to rise depending if there are droughts, heat waves and floods. In addition, as Lester Brown explains in his article The New Geopolitics of Food “…a monsoon failure in India, a drought in the former Soviet Union, a heat wave in the U.S. Midwest,” (Brown, 2011) are some of the reasons the world is suffering from food crisis. Furthermore, as “…crop-withering temperature increases, and irrigation wells running dry,” (Brown, 2011) it will be a difficult year in agriculture and if the unusual weather in the U.S and elsewhere keeps moving, it will lead to an impact in the humankind in the 21st century. In the news, experts explain the fear of food riots and the instability will agitate the world.
The second reason, is the meeting of food needs. “Each night, there are 219,000 additional people to feed at the global dinner table.” (Brown, 2011) We might have enough food produced to feed everyone worldwide, “…yet this food and the technology to produce it do not always reach those in need.” (Lean, Hinrichsen and Markham). The biggest problem is the politics and government. As a result, “nearly 1 000 million people do not get enough to eat and over 400 million are chronically malnourished. Every year 11 million children under the age of five die from hunger or hunger-related diseases (Lean, Hinrichsen and Markham). Worldwide, they just need to find a way to manage food production and help developed countries reach their needs.
Finally, one of the biggest problems is the disproportionate concentration of wealth and the global demand. We live in a world, where every day, we see a vast difference between people with high purchasing power and people who cannot feed their children. Most of the middle and high class people are unconscious of what they eat, until they go on a diet. On the other hand, in the extreme poverty communities, finding a bread to share is a hard task to reach.
Global demand, especially meat is a hard problem in America. In the Oprah Show, she explains that, "The U.S Department of Agriculture, Americans eat nearly ten billion animals a year, including thirty three millions of cows.” For that reason, more Americans are becoming vegetarian or vegan, because now these citizens want to learn where the food comes from and how is processed. With more media and technology, Americans are more exposed of the unethical treating of animals. However, it doesn’t matter if you’re a meat lover, or if for the next twenty one days you will try to become a vegan, the problem is that only wealthy people have the chance to eat organic and healthy eating choices. With new stores coming like Whole Foods, Americans have this idea that this will be the best solution for a healthy lifestyle. However, the humanity should start working more to find a greater social justice and redistribute the wealth fairly.
In my personal case, I lived in Oaxaca, a very poor state in the south part of Mexico. As the newspaper from Oaxaca El Imparcial states, “there is an estimate of two hundred and fifty thousand people that live in extreme poverty.” I remember that in front of my house a very poor family lived with two kids, every day they were fed with tortillas, beans and coffee without milk. Sometimes, these poor communities had to feed their children with animals that come from the dirt. For example, grasshoppers, maguey worms, ants, scorpions, and frogs. The problem here is that sometimes the government doesn’t do anything to help these communities.
I would like to see children, regardless of what country they are from, to have the opportunity to find a balanced way of healthy eating, so they can develop their potentials, intellectuals, physically and mentally, and be a productive human being for our society.
Angelica Romero
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