Deschutter's Food Problems: A Case Study

The world continues to face a wide-scale food crisis. The effects of this crisis reach from the farmers who grow and raise the food to the very system of laws that are in place to govern the system itself. Food giants are reaching deep into their pockets for lobbying in order to take advantage of both the producers and the consumer all in the name of profit. Moreover, farmers are being driven to suicide, and the ecosystem’s livelihood is treading a fine line. Both Michael Pollan and Raj Patel bring to light these problems and offer suggestions to help lessen their severity. Though there are many philosophies on which they both agree, they both have their own ideas to fight back. Pollan seeks to challenge the consumer as an individual while

Food shortages, a deepening economic crisis, insecurity and insufficient agricultural production at household-level have caused increased levels of food insecurity and alarming levels of acute malnutrition.

As Patel mentions in the sixth chapter, increasing amounts of food does not equal decreasing amounts of hunger. Amartya Sen did a study case of famines and found that modern famines to not be about the lack of food, but rather the inability to pay for food. The market is not about solving hunger, but is in business to sell products and technology. It is up to the state to address problems such as hunger, not the market’s, but the state hands their responsibility to the market (Patel, 2014).

Nutrition is important for healthy life. Many people are still hungry around the world even though there is mass production of food. This is because of unhealthy food production. In today’s world we see many obese people because of high intake of high fat and cholesterol containing food. It is important to have a healthy diet/ nutritional intake for individuals to have good foundation for physical and mental health. Now a day’s healthy food is getting more expensive rather than unhealthy food. Poor people are forced to eat unhealthy food, while the rich can afford to eat whatever the please. Food insecurity is caused by individuals not having healthy food for their families due to their low income or political and

Food security is a basic human right, which is essential for life. It exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy and active lifestyle [Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 1996]. Food insecurity at household level can be referred to not having sufficient food; experiencing hunger as a result of running out of food and being unable to afford more; eating a poor-quality diet as a result of limited food options; anxiety about acquiring food; or having to rely on food relief (Rychetnik et al, 2003). At community level, food security also depends on the availability and affordability of a variety of food items sold through retail and other food resources [United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2015a]. The geographical areas where accessibility to affordable and healthy food (especially fresh fruits and

Food security is defined as when all people have access to enough safe and healthy food to fit the preferences and needs of each person for a healthy life. Food sovereignty is one’s right to both nutritious and culturally appropriate food through ecologically safe methods. This means that even if people have food to eat, it does not necessarily mean they have food security nor food sovereignty (Rosenberger 2012:17). This also means that in a country, the poor must have as much access to nutritious and culturally relevant food as the wealthy in order to have true food security and sovereignty.

According to Derek Byerlee, food security can be defined as “the challenge of meeting food and nutritional needs while protecting environmental services.” Based on the definition given by Byerlee, food insecurity will be the exact opposite. Not meeting the food and nutritional needs of a country. Keep this definition in mind as this word will be mentioned throughout the paper.

Food security is one of the largest problems facing our world today. To be "food secure" a country must have enough

The current food system is highly market oriented and has many flawes that impact people in negative ways. The system contains problems starting form the production stage (farm labor issues) to the distribution ( food insecurities ). The current food system is primary driven by commodity rather than what people in communities want or need. In other words, because of globalization the food system provides customers with goods without asking the needs and want of the people. For instance, many cities in the United States have been exposed to food insecurities that result in food deserts. In most cases, an area can be catagorized as a food desert because they do not have the right type of food environment.

Due to global population growth there is a rising threat to food security. According to the United Nations Food and agriculture Organization (FAO) the widely accepted definition of "Food security" is that food is available at all times; that all persons have means of access to it; that it is nutritionally adequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety; and that it is acceptable within the given culture. Only when all these conditions are in place can a population be considered "food secure" (Mustafa et al. 1999)

The concept of food security is dynamic, that is continuously incorporated new dimensions and levels of analysis overtime. This ongoing evolution of food security concept indicates the wider recognition of the difficulties of concept in different areas of research and public policy, for the reason that food security issue has long history starting from time when global food crisis take place in the first half of the 1970s (Clay, E. 2002).

Vandana Shiva's essay "The Gift of Food" is an attempt to recontextualize agriculture, and by extension the problem of world hunger, within a new economic paradigm. That paradigm is, to a certain degree, announced in the title of her essay an economy that is based on the concept of gift exchange is, of course, very different from one that treats food as a commodity. Of course, the dominant paradigm in the west is precisely to regard food as a commodity, which is how we arrive at the situation described in the essay, where conditions of food production surplus paradoxically result in "820 million malnourished people, while others eat too much and get ill or obese." Shiva has no difficulty in pointing out the bewildering contradictions inherent in this basic situation. But the fact that such a situation exists in the first place is proof of an existing paradigm of thought on the issue of food which her arguments must seek to overturn. She therefore approaches the issue by trying, in several basic ways, to establish the grounds upon which a new way of thinking about the issue of food production can be established.

The first is rights discourse, where advocates use international agreements and apply them to a variety of political scales on a smaller level. These activists focus on the individual who should have the right to feed themselves as an essential part of social rights. This type focuses on accountability and responsibility of governments to protect its citizens against hunger. The second type focuses on structural barriers such as food banks and “anti-poverty” institutions. These believe that food security goes beyond guaranteeing access to food and hunger is an issue of poverty. This type argues that if one has a strong social safety net and adequate income, marginalized people can make choices around foods they purchase. The downside to this type of movement is it ignores the connection of food to the environment and the role globalization plays in production, distribution, and consumption of food. The final type is “Community Food Security” which combines the first two types and works to develop a broader perspective of sustainability and community building. CFS pushes for building local capacities for food production and marketing, equity, social justice, and ecological sustainability. This type of movement is focusing on long term development. CFS focuses less on governmental policy and more on social capacities that provide potential improvement for those in need. Behind all three types is the belief that people should develop the knowledge and

Food is the foundation of human live and people cannot survive without it. Food security is a vital issue facing the governments around the world. However, food shortage is becoming increasingly severe in this day and age. There are several reasons which led to the universal food shortage and they are interconnected to each other. Increasing world population, extreme weather and the wide spread use of biofuels are the main causes of worldwide shortage of food. These factors lead to food price rises rapidly.

Food is one of the basic needs of a human being to survive. All of us depend on food for having a good health, therefore with the lack of food many people will be starving and malnourished.