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Most recent food crisis
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When the oil price skyrocketed in 2011, most industries had to bear this price, and the food industry was no exception. The present food sector, including its price is highly transport and fuel dependant. The relationship between fuel and the food industry is systematic and independent. The rise in fuel prices leads to an increase in the price of food. It is important to note that most food-producing firms and farms use machines that hugely depend on fuel to function. They depend on fuel to transport crops and seedlings to farms, to transport food products to the market and to fuel farm equipments. Oil is also used as input in some farm chemicals. When oil price increases, pressure is put on the food system. When the price of oil increases, pressure is put on the entire food production process from production to supply, to the market. The dependency of food production on oil is imminent. In 2011, the food prices reached a new peak in terms of prices. This can hugely be attributed to the rise in oil prices. The food crisis was experienced globally and it led to serious impacts. In developing countries, riots broke out due to the rise of food prices. In these countries, several women and children slept hungry because they lacked finance to purchase food (Organization of the United Nations, 2011).
As oil prices increased, the demand for bio-fuel also increased, this made the prices of food to increase steadily. The rise of food prices increased as farm crops are used to make bio-fuels. Bio-fuels are attained from agricultural products mostly from corns. As the demand for bio-fuels increased in 2011, the prices of food increased, making food to be less affordable.
In 2011, the United Nations Food and Agricultural organization (FAO) ...
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...became expensive. This directly transmitted down to the consumers as the food prices rose globally. This incidence led to global unrest and many people died due to hunger and poverty. This situation needs to be prevented from happening again. A sustainable and economical food production process, that is not dependent on oil cost should be developed to avert such a crisis (Steger, Goodman & Wilson, 2013).
Works Cited
Lee, D. R., & Ndulo, M. (2011). The food and financial crises in Sub-Saharan Africa: Origins, impacts and policy implications. Wallingford, Oxfordshire: CABI.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development., & Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations. (2011). OECD-FAO agricultural outlook 2011-2020. Paris:
OECD/FAO.
Steger, M. B., Goodman, J., & Wilson, E. K. (2013). Justice globalism: Ideology, crises, policy. London: SAGE.
“Africa is failing to keep up with population growth not because it has exhausted its potential, but instead because too little has been invested in reaching that potential.” Paarlberg backs this claim with evidence that India’s food issue was solved with foreign assistance in development and offers that the solution to Africa’s food shortage is also development and farm modernization endorsed by foreign aid.
Humans are damaging the planet to live comfortably, we must change the way food is distributed worldwide, support local farmers and switch to a healthier diet in order to stop global warming. The current global has been getting better for us humans over the years, from eating bread and eggs 3 times a day in the XV century, now we can eat better than the kings of those times, however the much of the food in not healthy and the global food system still fails in getting food to every individual in the planet and in addition it contributes to the destruction of our world. Ms. Anna Lappe explains how the food system contributes to around 1/3 of the global warming issue in her essay “The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork”, while a group of Plos one explains the issues about the export and import of food growth over the last 50 years in the
In Raj Patel’s novel Stuffed and Starved, Patel goes through every aspect of the food production process by taking the experiences of all the people involved in food production from around the world. Patel concludes by eventually blaming both big corporations and governments for their critical role in undermining local, cultural, and sustainable foodways and in so doing causing the key food-related problems of today such as starvation and obesity. In this book of facts and serious crime, Patel's Stuffed and Starved is a general but available analysis of global food struggles that has a goal of enlightening and motivating the general Western public that there is something critically wrong with our food system.
Martell, Luke. "Conflicts in Cosmopolitanism and the Global Left." Policy Network. N.p., 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Priscilla. “The World Economy and Africa.” JSpivey – Home – Wikispaces. 2010. 29 January 2010. .
production of goods and foods decreased drastically and this ultimately led to starvation as people were
Shifting back to a more locally sourced food economy is often touted as a fairly straightforward way to cut externalities, restore some measure of equity between producers and consumers, and put the food economy on a more sustainable footing.” (source E). The long-distance transportation of food uses a profligate amount of fuel and exploits cheap labor in the process. It can greatly assist the environment to buy from local sources by making the carbon footprint of food production lesser and saving natural resources such as oil.
Young, I. M. (2006). Responsibility and global justice: A social connection model. Social Philosophy and Policy, 23(1), 102–130
And, because food now comes at a low cost, it has become cheaper in quality and therefore potentially dangerous to the consumer’s health. These problems surrounding the ethics and the procedures of the instantaneous food system are left unchanged due to the obliviousness of the consumers and the dollar signs in the eyes of the government and big business. The problem begins with the mistreatment and exploitation of farmers. Farmers are essentially the backbone of the entire food system. Large-scale family farms account for 10% of all farms, but 75% of overall food production (CSS statistics).
There are many problems confronting our global food system. One of them is that the food is not distributed fairly or evenly in the world. According “The Last Bite Is The World’s Food System Collapsing?” by Bee Wilson, “we are producing more food—more grain, more meat, more fruits and vegetables—than ever before, more cheaply than ever before” (Wilson, 2008). Here we are, producing more and more affordable food. However, the World Bank recently announced that thirty-three countries are still famine and hungers as the food price are climbing. Wilson stated, “despite the current food crisis, last year’s worldwide grain harvest was colossal, five per cent above the previous year’s” (Wilson, 2008). This statement support that the food is not distributed evenly. The food production actually increased but people are still in hunger and malnutrition. If the food were evenly distributed, this famine problem would’ve been not a problem. Wilson added, “the food economy has created a system in w...
Baylis, Smith and Patricia Owens. 2014. The globalization of World Politics: An introduction to international relations. London. Oxford University Press.
Walzer, Michael. Spheres of justice a defense of pluralism and equality. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. Print.
... reality if justice is supposed to be something that better's human life, then Globalism being considered just is yet another contradiction to justices own meaning. Maximizing profits is fair to those who are protected and making money off the deal, but laying off thousands of hard-working loyal employees to go across an ocean and under pay and overcrowd cheaper workers is not something that betters human life.
More farmers are now planting crops for biofuel, resulting to an intense drop in food production. According to experts this promising alternative energy source is seemingly causing a global decrease of food supply. As the demand for biofuels increases, more industrialized countries are offering encouragements and subsidizing farmers to grow crops for fuel rather than for food. The biofuel production method was also anticipated to be carbon neutral, as the crops would absorb the carbon dioxide released when the biofuel was burned. However crops for fuel are now grown at such a rate that they need more energy to cultivate, grow and harvest. By the time it reaches households, it would have consumed more energy and released more greenhouse causing substances than the feared fossil fuels would have. The fact that emissions are released during production, processing, fertilizer application and as a result of land use change is highly ignored. Somehow biofuels can sidetrack less harmful and clean resources like renewable energies such as solar and wind energy. Large scale cultivation of biofuel crops, unlike small scale, locally produced and biofuel owned farms are commonly challenged by problems such as severe use of water, chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides. These also often lead to pollution, depleting and degrading available water resources which can cause famines. According to contrary believe of analysts, it has also shown that there is not enough farming land on earth to produce biofuel crops to meet the huge energy needs encouraged by our current and unmaintainable ways of living. http://www.greenerideal.com/science/0516-biofuels/ &
The growing world population is demanding more and different kinds of food. Rapid economic growth in many developing countries has pushed up consumers' purchasing power, generated rising demand for food, and shifted food demand away from traditional staples and toward higher-value foods like meat and milk.