Dealing with the Global Food Crisis
This year 105 million people joined the circle of hunger, increasing the number of hungry people in the world to more than a billion. Every day 24,000 people die of hunger, including one child every five seconds. 967 million people are famished. The increase of food prices and a verity of different factors cause this unfortunate reality.
A salient factor is the world population growth. In 2009 world population has increased by 77 million people. The estimation is that by 2050 it will have increased to 9.3 billion people (whereas now it is 6.8 billion). The prominent increase is in Africa, Southern Asia and partially in Latin America.
Another factor is related to climate problems, as droughts, global warming etc. These, affect the harvests and raise the food prices. Other factors may be consequences of the global financial crisis in 2008-2009, for example, the rising oil prices, which raise the price of food transportation and a decline in financial aid to agricultural productivity in developing countries. In addition, growth in global demand for products like meat and grain, plus use of crops for biofuel production at the expense of food production also affect the crisis.
The latter is a major, complicated problem. Maize and sugar canes for example can be used either for food or to produce biofuel. An estimated 100 million tons of grain per year are being redirected from use of food to fuel production. The biofuel industries are located in developed countries. This fact creates a conflict – demand for fuel in developed countries versus demand for food in developing countries.
A distressing fact is that 30% of the food is thrown away every year. Farmers are occasionally asked to dispose of some of their crops, good or not, due to rigid contracts with processors or retailers that specify their quality and quantity. This differentiation also reaches the supermarket shelves. People buy the fine goods, leaving the rest to be thrown away. Further more, the estimation is that 2.7 kg of food per person in a developed country are thrown away every week.
Though food prices have declined since 2008, they still remain above historic levels. The USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and other organizations as Oxfam have taken several steps in order to restrain the global food crisis. Besides donating money and resources, OFDA (USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance) attempts to strengthen access to food in many ways - increasing purchasing power, strengthening livelihoods of individuals and raising agricultural production. In addition, the World Bank Group set up the Global Food Crisis Response Program (GFRP) in May 2008. This program provides an immediate assistance to countries hard hit the global food crisis
Helpful Sites:
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/GlobalFoodCrisis?ReadForm
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