Feeding and Fishing: the Issue Facing the U.S. and the Global Community

The world population of 7.2 billion in mid-2013 is projected to increase by almost one billion people within the next twelve years. It is projected to reach 8.1 billion in 2025, and to further increase to 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100. This assumes a decline of fertility for countries where large families are still prevalent as well as a slight increase of fertility in several countries with fewer than two children per woman on average.

Compare predictions for human population growth in developed countries versus developing countries. Why is it difficult to predict the growth of Earth’s human population? Why should population growth be predicted?”? What will happen if there is exponential human growth?

As the population continues to grow the challenge of sustainably feeding the population increases. Countries like India, china, and Africa are some of the most agriculture abundant locations in the world yet they are the ones suffering the most from hunger. Currently 1 in 7 Americans struggle to eat enough food everyday. Poverty in Africa however is very different from America in regard to hunger. In America 40 percent of Americans from age 25-60 will experience at least a year below the poverty line. This quite the contrary to Africa where most people spend their whole life under the poverty line. The major difference is resources, many Americans can overcome poverty and find a steady job to support themselves. In Africa there are limited jobs, most people have to cultivate their own food and supply their own drinking water. It is an endless cycle of hunger with no real way out unless outside help is given.

As the human race continues to grow older the population starts to grow. Population growth is a change in the size of a population over time, depending on the balance of births and deaths over a period of time. For the world, population grows when the amount of births exceeds the amount of deaths. As shown in figure 1, the world’s population grew very slowly until about 1750 that is when the population growth started to increase rapidly. Figure 2 shows the growth of the global population from 1950 onwards, it also shows the projected population growth up to 2050. The global population is estimated to rise to approximately 9 billion people by 2050.

Richard Robbins explores and analyzes the creation and the upkeep of hunger in his book “Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Each day, over a billion people in the world lack basic food needs. Common misunderstandings about world hunger are that it is the result of insufficient food production, famine is the common reason for hunger and that hunger is caused by overpopulation. Robbins argues against that theory and says that famines is not the leading cause of hunger and hunger is not due to overpopulation or insufficient food production. “Food production is not determined by the global need for food; it is determined on how many people have the means for it” (page 176). The documentary “The End of Poverty” reinforces Robbins belief that food is a commodity.

Now we covered how to help feed people but why do they need this. There is no agricultural reason. It's important to know that laking a diversity in food is almost as bad as the laking food. Such as lacking access to fresh organic foods. It also comes down to the economy. People can't afford to buy nutritious food anymore. There are many families that have to choose between electricity and food. There are many people that are unemployed with the unemployment rate at 5.3% many Americans can't afford it. Making the main case of hunger

The issue of hunger in africa has caused major chaos around the world. The fact that families and children are left to die because there is insufficient food; therefore, families are separated and left to suffer. For example, on page 1 of “Why Africa Is Still Starving”, by Alex Perry, it states that, “From January to May, the fields were parched and brown. And one failed harvest is enough to turn Ethiopia, a nation of 66 million farmers, a humanitarian catastrophe”. Alex Perry explains how the soil of Africa is not rich enough to grow any goods or rich crops.

Without some system of worldwide food sharing, the proportion of people in the rich and poor nations might eventually stabilize. The overpopulated poor countries would decrease in numbers, while the rich countries that had room for more people would increase. Hardin continues on to show that the modern approach to foreign aid stresses the export of technology and advice, rather than money and food! An ancient Chinese proverb once said: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach him how to fish and he will eat for the rest of his days” (Hardin, Pg. 84). A number of programs for improving agriculture in the hungry nations known as the “Green Revolution” have taken a big stand in offering harvest and greater resistance to crop damage due to action taken on this advice. It is said that foundations such as “miracle rice” and “miracle wheat” are one of the most prominent advocates of a world food bank.

Even though America may prosper, the future it’s still dark for many other countries and there seems to be no viable solutions. With the scarce amount of food that we have, it seems like an impossible task, with only three times what we require to feed the world´s population it is impossible to choose an alternative, such as distributing this food among everyone,

Hunger stalks America and many other countries. How the world deals with hunger is dependent on cultural attitudes and the understanding of what hunger means to the individual and communities. In the United States, the majority of hungry people are the elderly, children, and the disabled which represent a bloc of people unable to provide for themselves with employment. The understanding that governmental systems and institutions responsible for food insecurity are failing, is becoming mainstream in the population, not the previous idea that agriculture does not produce enough food. How to provide physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet dietary needs and food preferences for healthy lives is a problem of political and economic exclusion, social injustice and discrimination (Cunningham 2017, Lecture 1). The right to food security should be an uncompromised right of humanity, no matter the cost to government or agriculture.

Food is a necessary part of ever individual’s daily life. Without food, the body cannot function properly, resulting in poor health, exhaustion, and even death by starvation. Therefore, food insecurity continues to be an international global epidemic. The journal article by Harrigan suggests that the citizens of the Sub-Saharan African country of Malawia are in further poverty due to their lack of food and agricultural resources. The newspaper article from the Guardian tells the real life story of African citizens struggling to farm and find food due to the crop shortages that have spanned Africa for the past two years. This is a current global issue, and the journal and news article prove that there is much to be done in order to help restore

Millions of people deal with hunger daily while the United States, as well as other developed countries, waste enough edible food to feed every hungry person on the planet. “Forty percent of the food in the United States

In the past ten years the world population exceeded six billion people with most of the growth occurring in the poorest, least developed countries in the world. The rapidly increasing population and the quickly declining amount of land are relative and the rate at which hunger is increasing rises with each passing year. We cannot afford to continue to expand our world population at such an alarming rate, for already we are suffering the consequences. Hunger has been a problem for our world for thousands of years. But now that we have the technology and knowledge to stamp it out, time is running short.

Food security is a worldwide concern because of the increases in the price of food, food shortage and other various reasons similar to these. These issues are addressed not only by governments but also by many non-governmental organizations. Clearly the issue of food security is a human right that is of the most importance.

Fish are organisms that the world greatly relies upon. Making up a large chunk of the food chain, fish are a primary source of food for many land and sea animals. According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations), fish are a basal source of protein to about one billion people, and are extremely vital to poor and developing countries, supplying these countries’ people with 27% of their protein intake. Although fish are obviously an important staple to the earth’s food supply, many people are completely unaware of how threatened these important organisms are by overfishing. Overfishing is the act of harvesting too many fish for the mature fish to reproduce and replenish the ocean. In turn, this act of overfishing results in the exploitation of many fish populations, and simply put, fewer fish. As of late, the FAO has stated that 80% of the world’s fish stocks are considered exploited and are suffering from depletion. Furthermore, “Scientists have determined that the negative effects of pollution, habitat loss, and overfishing will deplete current marine fishing stocks by 2048.” (Essentials of Oceanography). This is an unfortunate state for these organisms to be in, considering their importance to humans and the earth’s ecosystem. Overfishing is a crucial issue in the world that needs to be addressed and solved effectively.