World Food Crisis

The global population is expected to reach 9 billion people by the year 2050 and scientific projections indicate that world is on a trajectory towards an environmental and global food crisis. World Leaders, environmental enthusiasts and aid agencies have cause for alarm as they support urgent policies for change, for without them mankind will face unprecedented food insecurity. In 2015 estimates were that there were “some 795 million people” [World Food Programme, 2015], experiencing food insecurity and 3.1 million children under 5 died through malnutrition, while Australians continue to waste an estimated 361 Kg’s of food per person per yr [PMSEIC, 2010, p.44] All the while the earth groans under the weight of Greenhouse Gas Emissions [GHG], deforestation, soil degradation and

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

The world we live in today is growing at an extremely fast pace. It seems to be that everyday there are more buildings being built, more concrete being poured, and more free land being destroyed. The cause of these events is the worlds’ population rate. Every day our population reaches an all-time high, every day we gain more mouths to feed, and every day we are losing ways to feed these mouths. Food insecurity has risen significantly along with the rise of our population. We must find ways to lower the food insecurity rate by finding new farming practices, making the public more aware of this issue, and doing more ourselves to make sure that we make a change to this problem.

farms to keep their prices low, can eventually cause the market to fail. (58) The article The

In this critical response to the article America’s Food Crisis and How to Fix it by Bryan Walsh. I am going to talk about how animals are being harmed and are given antibiotics to keep them from becoming sick, where the farmers put all the waste from the animals, and how people could fix it.

A severe shortage of food in the United States could occur from many causes. Farms could stop growing crops and breeding animals. Some sort of bacteria could sweep through the country killing different food plants. The more important part of the shortage of food however would not be the causes, but the effects. The stance of the country's economy, the well-being of middle and lower-class families, and the quality of stores that used to sell the products would all decline greatly if an event as severe as an extreme shortage of food were to occur.

However, some believe, that a shift in the way we produce food may have some unintended consequences. They contend that poverty in nations such as Africa and Asia, is caused by the low productivity of the unindustrialized farm labor. The U.S. Agriculture Department projects, without reform, there will be over a thirty percent increase in the numbers of the ‘food insecure’ people in those nations over the next decade (Paarlberg 179).

The current administration’s approach to immigration reform may lead to long lasting and possibly irreversible effects on the U.S. food supply.

The agricultural industry: the farms, plants, animals, and farmers, have supported this great country for so long, but lately we have turned our backs on it. Today, we live in a materialistic society, people wanting more and better items, not settling for products that will accomplish the same job.From looking at the fruits and vegetables in the grocery store, we see the bruised or smaller ones left, while the big and brightly colored ones are selected first. In our society today, changes are constantly being made to help expand and evolve the agricultural industry, but it has yet been able to do so. To this day farmers across this nation have not been completely successful in providing for the people who make up this country. In the stores

Added to the financial risk of farming, already gambling on soil and weather and crops.

producers as well as the fact that individual farmers are simply too insignificant to affect an

Without being able to grow these crops the farmers will become poorer and poorer until they have no money left to spend on anything. This will not just be affecting the third world countries though it will also greatly affect bigger countries like for say the U.S. which gets most of their food from farmers such as the ones talked about in the article. There is also a difference in the price foods are bought for and the price they are sold for. Since there is a difference in the dollar and other currencies the U.S. can rip other countries off. There is also the food demand which is expected to grow by about 30% before 2050. This massive bump in food demand will make the farmers work for a lot longer as well as produce a lot more food for the world. They won’t be able to do any of this because they are underfunded and can’t earn as much money during the time where they aren’t harvesting and selling. But Bill Gates has a plan to help these underfunded farmers. He plans to begin donating to the One Acre fund. This group works with over 200,000 African farmers and it provides them with access to help with financing, tools and training to become a better farmer. Melinda and Bill have made a bet that Africa will be able to feed itself within the next 15

(167). Heavy taxes on agriculture leads to low productivity and low output (Dennis). New technology is not as efficient: “The heavy harvesting equipment that now does the work of the harvesting has left larger amounts of grain in the field…” (Holthaus 135). Holthaus describes the loss of access to the markets as a result of more contacting and the “growing influence of transnational megacorporations.” Farmers are no longer in control of agriculture; they have little say in what crops to grow and have to listen to the contracted company. Farmers no longer farm for the market, they farm to be able to pay the bank or to meet a contract with a company (167). When farmers decide to contract, they become another worker in the industrial system of agriculture. Farmers lose their markets, which are taken over by large corporations; and lose a percentage of their profit (Holthaus 150). According to “American Farms Keep Growing: Size, Productivity, and Policy,” about 30% of American farms have any significant farm production. 6 percent of all farms account for three-fourths of US farm output.The loss of political power and influence is due to less farmers and their families living on the land, aswell as, less people living in rural communities, which means that they have less authority and voting powers (167). The health of

Threats include farmers reluctance, competition, non-adequate pricing strategy, low trained salesforce and technicals, higher costs then forecasted.

Besides the growing shortage of field workers in America, false food scares is another problem that leaves ready to pick fruits and vegetables on the plant. A food scare is when a contamination spreads, the public is informed, and thus stays away from purchasing that particular infected plant. “For example, in 2008 a warning was issued by the Food and Drug Administration of possible salmonella contamination in tomatoes. The warning was eventually discovered to be unfounded, but in the meantime it created a negative perception among consumers and decreased overall demand. As a result, some 32 percent of total U.S. tomato acreage went un-harvested” (Gunders). Food scares similar to the tomato crisis are not uncommon; with the rise of social media, information about food scares spreads faster (Desmarchelier, Fang). These food scares are not only waste food but they also are bad for the economy. As a result of food scares, companies experience costly consequences, their stock may fall, and perhaps they will have to pay a fine, in addition to having to purchase ads to regain their base’s trust (Duggan). For large food companies it is a simple annoyance to regain the consumer’s trust, however for small businesses or farms it can drive them bankrupt.