FOOD INSECURITY AND IT'S EFFECTS.
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WHAT CAUSES FOOD INSECURITY?
The reasons for hunger and food insecurity are many and vary from country to country, but generally, it is a result of conflict, poverty, economic shocks such as hyperinflation and rising commodity prices and environmental shocks such as flooding or drought. The conflict in Ukraine has sent global food prices skyrocketing. A third of the world’s wheat supplies come from Ukraine or Russia. Ukraine also supplies the world with sunflower oil, barley, maize, and fertilisers. But ongoing conflict means that fields won’t be prepared, crops won’t be planted and fertilisers won’t be available. COVID-19 also caused a sharp rise in poverty and inequality globally, as lockdowns devastated family livelihoods. In many countries, pandemic restrictions also meant disruption to food supplies.
According to the UN, 928 million people were severely food insecure already in 2020 – an increase of 148 million on the previous year.
SOME MAJOR REASONS OF THE FOOD INSECURITY ARE :
CONFLICT :
Conflict is the biggest cause of hunger globally, and is responsible for 65% of the people facing acute food insecurity. From Mali to Syria to Mozambique, protracted fighting destroys livelihoods and forces families to flee their homes, leaving countless children, including girls, facing hunger. It also makes it extremely difficult and dangerous for humanitarian organisations to reach communities in need.
CLIMATE CHANGE :
Climate change has contributed to food insecurity by changing weather patterns such as rainfall, increased climatic shocks such as hurricanes, cyclones, floods and droughts which all have an impact on harvests. Climate change has also increased the amount of crop pests such as locusts, which damage and destroy harvests.
ECONOMIC INSTABILITY :
Inflation and economic shocks has impacted the access to food for many people. Even if food is available, for many people it is too expensive to buy reducing people’s access to food. Linked to the Pandemic, many people have lost their livelihoods and income, again reducing families’ ability to purchase food.
THE EFFECTS OF THE FOOD INSECURITY
HOW WILL THE HUNGER CRISIS AFFECT WOMEN AND GIRLS?
according to the plan international,hunger affects girls, boys, women and men differently. When food is scarce, girls often eat less and eat last. Women and girls account for 70% of the world’s hungry. And as families and communities come under strain, girls are more likely than boys to be taken out of school, and will be at risk of child, early and forced marriage, gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and unwanted pregnancy. Adolescent girls in Burkina Faso, Mali and South Sudan have told us that they are more likely to be married at a young age if their families are struggling financially.
We cannot wait for this food crisis levels to increase, if you ask me children are already dying out of hunger many times a day so what can we do, we need to act now we cannot delay any longer.
Governments, donors and humanitarian actors must urgently contribute towards the USD $21.5 billion to those in need we have to rid the earth of famine and promote the resilience of 137 million people. If we do not do so that would likely result in widespread starvation as well as a complete collapse of agricultural livelihood strategies and assets.
WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO TO STOP THE GLOBAL FOOD INSECURITY?
WHO NEEDS TO DO MORE THE GOVERNMENT OR US THE POEPLE?
Comments (4)
Yes we can do a lot of things to ensure food security more so in this pandemic of diseases like covid- 19 and Ebola were our fellow brothers and sisters are dying.we can decide to use food reserves like smoking the fish , salting the meating,refrigerating,sundrying and this will help to protect food for some good times and this can help in times of scarcity.
We can also decide to instill a sense of solidarity and this can be done by working together as neighbors to protect one another or we decide to produce different kinds of foods so that we can exchange it Incase one needs what I have instead of competing amongst each other.
As a family,we can also prioritize gender equality by allowing girls,boys,men and women to grow, eat whatever kind of food they want instead of putting restrictions to one gender leaving out the other for example in Uganda more so among the Baganda girls are not allowed to eat gizzards, eggs than this is only given to men.
Let’s also keep markets open where people within the same village and different villages are allowed to exchange goods together thus this will build trust amongst us.
I agree because... the more we try to avoid health diseases we can improve on the effect of food crisis
I think that the government has a role to play in solving this problem. For example, governments must work to reclaim parts of desert areas, develop plans to grow food and basic commodities, work on desalination to overcome water shortages, reduce the migration of labor force from the countryside to the city, and establish industrial projects to transform Agricultural products, and the development of livestock and poultry breeding by scientific means. We want productive countries, not importers. We make use of our capabilities, as we have all that qualifies us for that from our tools and our youth, to contribute also to reducing the unemployment rate and raising the economy in our Arab societies. Therefore, what is required is the solidarity of our Arab countries, and the elimination of the problem of food shortages.
I agree because... I actually do feel like the government are not doing enough to prevent the food insecurity
I do agree with you that government has to play a role in solving this problem but also we as individuals also has as much role as the government has. We should not wait for the government to tell us what to do before we do it especially when it comes to farming what we are going to eat. If we want to eradicate this global food crisis we need to get our heads thinking about how to grow more trees and food.
You have very excellent points agreeable_dusk. I agree that reducing the migration of the labor force, establishing industrial projects, and developing livestock and poultry breeding, can help to reduce world hunger in countries. They are workable and realistic plans. I also agree with you that if Arab countries or other countries stand in solidarity in other to eliminate food shortages, it will happen.
However, you raised a point that I am concerned about which is to "...work on desalination to overcome water shortages..." Desalination has some negative environmental effects. The process entails removing salt from seawater and filtering it to produce drinking-quality water. But the process requires lots of energy. The fossil fuels normally used in the energy-intensive desalination process contribute to global warming, and the toxic brine it produces pollutes seaside ecosystems. This contributes to climate change and engaging in this process on a large scale can render all the efforts made toward a sustainable world useless. What do you think about this? How should this problem be managed?
One essential component in the common solutions to food insecurity is assisting locals with the sustainable management of local natural resources through soil conservation, water harvesting, rehabilitating irrigation systems and reducing the loss of biodiversity. This is directed toward localized measures to solve food deficiency issues. We can also target food for direct consumption. This is an easy way of also avoiding waste. When we produce in excess some may end up spoiling or rot, so targeting the amount that can be consume at once would be good.
I agree because, there is a simple range of things that can help out the food insecurity I mean during the lockdown in Nigeria, when people stole palliative, the government basically di nothing about it so if you ask me, they can do a lot.
First, food is necessary for all of us, and food insecurity leads to an increase in famine and disasters, in addition to an increase in deaths. Millions of people around the world suffer from food shortages. There are motives that led to a high level of food insecurity in 2021, including conflicts, extreme weather events, and shocks. Economic and other reasons, but I believe that local food price inflation is still high in various parts of the world, and this reason has also helped in food insecurity, while there are rich groups, as the excess of their need for food satisfies many people in poor countries, but if we think A little, there are many people who do not have jobs, and they can take advantage of this time by using modern technology and paying attention to agriculture. This will reduce the rate of poverty and famine. We must prevent the migration of labor and work to establish factories to convert agricultural products and develop livestock and poultry breeding by scientific means and land reclamation desert for cultivation