FOOD CRISIS AND SHARING-Are they interconnected?

Food is one of the basic needs of any human being. Though there has been enough food to feed everyone around the world, ”FOOD CRISIS” still persists. Solving world hunger, one of the 17 SDGs, is the need of the hour. There are many causes for this global food crisis. Here is one such cause and a possible solution to overcome it .

RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION,POVERTY AND FOOD WASTE:

The world is diverse. While some countries have food items in abundance and let the food get wasted, some are still struggling to meet its demand .According to statistics, ”40 percent of food is being wasted in America.”

Hereby the term resource distribution I also mean “the wealth and income. ”Some individuals have an excess of wealth and income while a few suffer from extreme poverty that they are not even able to meet their basic need such as food.

SOLUTION:

The government of various countries together should promote imports and exports by reducing tax barriers and help in the transfer of surplus among countries. But this has a limitation. While transporting food items, a lot of food may get wasted. The UNEP has said,”14 percent of the food is lost in the supply chain before reaching retail locations. ”This is due to the lack of refrigeration. Using conventional refrigerants can cause global warming and climate change. Hence, the UNEP has given the Sustainable cold chains as the possible solution to overcome this problem. Storage facilities also need to be strengthened to save food items from getting wasted.

As individuals, one can donate to charities and food banks, if they can, to ensure the transfer of excess food items to the needy. To ensure that the poor are also getting food items, the government should implement and maintain Public Distribution System[PDS] which provides ration at affordable prices.

To implement these the government needs huge investment and funds. They can get these funds by levying extra taxes from the rich and by channelizing the funds from “wasteful spending.”

Apart from these there are also other causes such as climate change pollution, war, inflation, political reasons and pandemic which causes global food crisis. For instance, Egypt one of the largest importers of wheat faced severe problems due to the Russian-Ukraine war. Ukraine and Russia accounted for nearly one third of global wheat exports. With the breakout of war, in countries like Egypt the import costs of wheat raised. Egypt made a quick deal with India to meet out its wheat demand. Though India banned exports of wheat due to lower domestic production gave a green signal when it came to countries like Egypt which was in desperate need of wheat. Thus countries should keep aside conflicts when it comes to sharing of food items across borders. This is something which governments can do.

BUT WHAT ABOUT US?WHAT ARE WE DOING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF FOOD CRISIS?We as individuals need to step up and take up some responsibilities such as SHARING, DONATING AND NOT WASTING FOOD to overcome the global food crisis. If we closely observe all the possible solutions that we have discussed, most of it would have one thing in common, which is "SHARING".

When all of us keep asking ourselves this question “WHY CAN’T I JUST CARE AND SHARE!!” I feel that half of the world’s problems will get solved.