This is another great discussion because it affects all of us who are members of the human race. I actually would do like Ross Perot, and put the best minds together to iron out the most realistic solutions. The reason we need the greatest minds to attack the problem is because it is not that simple. There are a lot of factors and possible helpful solutions which can play into this.
First, we need to really launch a task force to study the problem, and once we receive all the valid data, we can go to work. The answers to the hunger problem are going to be very difficult to obtain and even harder to implementthe solutions. It seems as if most of the hunger is systemically at it's worst in Africa.
I believe in the "give a man a fish and he eats for a day or teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" theory. Just dumping bags of food on these regions is only a short term band- aid approach. I believe in attacking this problem with a world wide effort by providing seed, training, and help with the cultivation of potential grow fields. If we can obtain a plentiful supply of growing fields , we can have these people begin to see a sustainable source for nutrients.
In addition, I am hopeful that we can continue to supply these regions with clean water sources. The failure of helping these poor regions to obtain growth is indicative of lack of funding in almost all cases. I am almost sure that these great people are more than willing to work hard... get up early and work until late to better their lives. Let us give them a hand by implementing a world wide initiative with plenty of funding.
The answer to this situation is the same as for all the other problems we face. The solution is education and evolution. Education and evolution are very similar in the aspect that it takes several years to see its benefits. In today’s times there are more highly educated people walking this earth then ever before. With that said lets test how smart we have become. Test questions, 1. We have heard about going green for over ten years now. Then why don’t people recycle, watch water consumption and carry plastic water bottles. 2. There has been over ten years of marketing the benefits of wearing a seat belt. 3. There has been over ten years of marking to drink “responsibly”
How did we do? If you would to grade us on accomplishing these simple adaptations with our “great” intelligent society, would we pass?
Throughout history living things have adapted (evolved) in order to continue to exist. For those species which did not are found in our museums; like the dinosaurs (poor them, it’s not their fault a meter hit). Maybe one day we will be part of an exhibit.
Tatiana supports the "give a man a fish and he eats for a day or teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" theory. However when you teach a man to fish he also will catch all of the fish so that there will be none left for you to eat. It would be okay to teach a man to fish if there were only two of you. However, the problem we face is not that people don't know how to grow their food. It is that there are too many people to feed with the crops that they can grow. How about some form of education into birth control? It seems that in very poor countries families tend to have a lot of offspring due to the high mortalty rate. Perhaps spending money on building roads and basic infrastructure such as hospitals and schools to help their economy and survival rate would go a long way in helping the poorer peoples, such as sub saharan africa, as opposed to giving them free handouts of food.
We are exceedingly disobedient when it comes to our natural resources, especially with agriculture and oil, with that our population is growing and our resources fall short. And with deforestation, we are just killing our planet. What’s the point of talking about overpopulation if we won’t have a planet to live on? I absolutely disagree with limiting the amount of births in a household to one child. In a perfect world, that would be an ideal system. And in a perfect world we wouldn’t have poverty and people starving; and we wouldn’t be having this discussion but we don’t live in a perfect world. Moreover, using this method as way to cut down the numbers of people in the world because we are unable to support them now is not the way to go. Whether you are given one child or multiples, naturally, is not our decision. Telling someone from a third world country to limit child birth is wrong because they don’t have the resources like we do when it comes to contraception. What they need is to be educated. Those people are having shortage problems because they are not well-informed on how to control the land. What we need to do, since we have the upper hand, is to invest more time in these underdeveloped nations, work with them, and educate them more.
This topic is a huge issue in the world right now and will take a very long time to be fixed. I feel that the number one solution in this situation is education. People need to be smarter in the way food is produced, need to change their current habits, and need to stop ignoring problems. People in Africa are in desperate need to be taught how to change their current situation. It doesn’t make sense that in American there is too much food, and Africa there is not enough. One of the reasons for this is because of the overpopulation of the country, which just leads to an underdeveloped country and lack of food. Especially since the population has been increasing, there is too great of a demand for food production. Unfortunately we do not have enough resources to provide everyone with their needs. What I find extremely terrible is that we are eating away all of the other species and our nature; animals, forests, farms, etc. We are destroying all of it. Not only are we consuming it, but also we are poisoning it with pesticides and fertilizers, which just end up polluting the earth. All of these problems need to be resolved through organizations that will come up with plans to improve this situation.
I agree with Tatiana's give a man a fish quote and Andrew counter with it as well. Although, in my opinion, it's not so really the population where the main problem is, although it can be a factor and would lessen if birth control education were more efficient. But regarding the agricultural sense, it's not so much the supply of food that is a problem, i personally see it's the DISTRIBUTION of food. Believe it or not, the world is vast and food is produced over and over again, and the world itself recycles so food never stops to exist, and the quantity is vast, it's the distribution of food that has the problem. Do you know how many tons of pounds of food are thrown away each single day due to it spoiling because noone uses it or buy's it before it's due because of a big supply in the stores, people can only buy so much in one place while the rest of the food stocks up. And do you know the amount of people who starve because there's "no food"? so theres an abundant of food in one place and none in another... isn't that a bit of a contradiction? There's world hungry and yet theres food being wasted... how is that even logically possible? Re-analising how food is distributed would help with world hunger.
Access and affordability is also a major issue when addressing this critical matter. While the food baskets of the world need to increase production to feed other nations we must keep it affordable. For one, growing crops to produce bio fuel is a terrible idea. Not only will this limit the grains to feed the world but also cause havoc on all standards if there is a bad year in farming. Access to food is also a major issue while in America we eat 9 times more than people in Africa we must finds ways in developing nations for them as well be able to produce farm land for them to produce in their country to feed there people.
Unfortunately hunger and poverty keep growing around the world while the increase of food production is slowing down. Authorities in the most affected countries should develop agricultural research to be able to lower the prices of food. Also, the government should educate people about the importance of a good and healthy nutrition. Another solution would be that in countries where the population is growing faster than the food production the government should get involved to try to prevent over population. Usually lower income and poor families tend to have more children than high income families and I think one of the main reason it is lack of education. The government should educate people to prevent over population at least while the food production is slowly increasing.
All of these issues tie into each other. The manner that one issue such as lack of education is handled affects another issue such as poverty, which then affects another such as over population. I think the basic place to start with these issues is education. Educate people on ways to prevent and manage these problems that arising around the world. Education in general no matter how it is applied may be too slow to show progress for some people but it is the one thing that can provide a more permanent solution to these problems and provide better outcomes than just on the spot remedies that fix some of the problems for a bit. Better distribution of resources such as agriculture, systems to make clean water, and a sort of governmental structure would be a big help as well. Also I think that different governments should work collectively instead of handling these issues independently. Clearly the way things are being handled is not the way to continue forward. Ashley Mueller-Gomez
What makes all of this even worse is that not many of us take the time to help out. Even though we know that we are accumulating needless amount of food and tings, we still wont stop. We have the tendency to belief that we need them to survive but in actuality not of that is needed. Then by allowing ourselves such pleasures, we take them away from others. Those pleasures are also taken for granted by us, while in others they would fight just for an instance of the same things we enjoy.
Interesting topic. How can the world increase the rate of food production and still achieve sustainability? With the population rate increasing, I don't think that the rate of food production will ever catch up. The only way I think that the food population can stay stable with the population, is only if humans stop reproducing and we all know that for a fact it won't happen. The world hunger is a serious case and sometimes I feel bad that there are times where I waste food knowing that there are people in the world that are starving and don't even know when they're next meal will be or If they'll even have a meal. How can we stop the world from the poverty of food? All the food that is produced in the US can feed all of Africa if only we spend the time and money on investing on these underdeveloped nations. We produce enough food to feed ourselves and other nations, and not go hungry ourselves. There's too much food in the developed countries, and not enough in the developing countries. Lack of resources is a primary concern in regions such as suda-Sahara Africa. There is over population and barely any food to be distributed. And I agree with Ruben, the solution will be Evolution and Education.
This is a very interesting topic. Food production it has always been a huge concern and the more the population grows , the bigger the problem is.
My opinion is that each and one of us has to contribute in some way , we cant wait for the Government to do this because they are so concentrated in their own issues that if we leave this all to them they will never finish with the problem . Everyone has to commit and help the people that really needs it , never wasting any food or contributing to foundations that take care of it . If each and everyone starts making a change i think we can have a big change in a few years.
okay so this topic isn't so great to discuss but then again what topic is. my opinion in this topic is maybe we should all think more about the amounts of foods we consume a day for waste. i mean think about it how many of us dont cook a meal for 50 people and buy supplies for 100? i mean come on how much food arnt we throwing away. we should really think about those in need when it comes to those situations. and how about the supermarkets give away food as well. i mean instead of putting everything for sale two days before it expires, cause thats what the super markets do, how about they send those foods out to the people in need. i mean they would consume better us of it then us just hey on sale i dont need it but ill put it in the shelf and in the end it just gets thrown out. theres just so many possiable thins we could do, we just really need to work together, the smallest thing would make the biggest difference i belive.
I never realized how many people live in absolute poverty. I think that lack of education is a big factor in all of this. As for the rest of us, I think that we really need to get things changing or else I see our future generations living in a completely different world than the one we live in now. I also agree that we each should be an example of sustainability to show others that it’s possible and encourage them to do same. It takes just take easy steps like recycling, shopping locally, reducing waste, etc. Think about the change we can create us by taking small step.
I know how important food and water is and I am very sad that we have this much pain and suffering in the world. I do believe that the governments in Africa primarily treat their populations unfairly by hoarding oil money. The corruption in this country is beyond belief. Africa today is a rich continent because of all of its natural resources like the conflict minerals in the congo region and the light sweet crude found off the western coast. The governments throughout the continent are keeping the wealth out of the hands of the people.
The issue of population outgrowing food source is something that has been a growing concern since the late 1700s. A British economist named Thomas Malthus addressed this about 200 years ago in a famous essay titled, "Essay on population." He also concluded that population would outgrow food source. I think that the food shortage is a problem, but I only think it is a problem because people are having more children then they can support (mostly in poorer families). Sometimes it is not taken into account that a child needs food, and food cost money, when you do not have enough money you will not have enough food. I agree with Andrew that we should give information about birth control, and other ways to limit population. When population starts to grow out of control, famine, disease, and natural disasters occur; this is nature’s way of keeping the population in check. America cannot just start giving handouts of food to these countries, our prices would rise and we would be getting less. I can’t imagine that someone would be happy paying full price for half the amount of something. Like Tatiana said, “Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” With that said, Teach these countries the ways to control their population, and how to plant and farm their own crops, they’ll eat for a lifetime.
Daisy Gigantana said... I believed in sustainable environment. We should get recycling seriously. I know that Miami-Dade implement recycling in which I applaud. I just wish that everyone would participate. If and everyone of us do our part, this will lead to less tree usage, less garbage that end up in landfill, less energy consumption. On the positive side, more new products can be re-made of the recycle parts. We should utilize solar and wind energy. Maybe mass market electric or fuel cell cars that give us reduce emissions which help the environment. I want to discuss water consumption. Yes, we are worried about food production. But we still need to focus on clean water. Unfortunately, corporations gobble up water consumption when raising crops in which more than two-thirds of water used is clean water. Not a lot a people know that this will lead to less water consumption to the rest of the population especially in some states who are experiencing drought and waging war in water usage. Also, using fertilizer add problems to maintaining clean water. When the fertilizer seeps into the ground, somehow it finds its way to our aquifers and threatens our water resources. Even the damage affects our rivers, lakes, and oceans. I don’t have any solutions, but I wish that our government or companies would invest in new technology that uses ocean water and turn it into clean water. Although, some of the developing nation don’t have access to the food supplies due to high prices for people who can’t afford. But we can feed the world since we have enough food supplies and still the food distribution does not channel correctly to the people who really needs it because of affordability. We could also support the local farmers in doing so leads to less transportation emission and at the same time help the local economy.
It is hard to say if there is a solution, and if people will ever come to the right way of using our land for producing goods. Right now everybody is paying a lot of money for the gasoline, but nobody does not think that one day the water will cost all most the same as the gasoline. Human kind is destroying there resources and especially water by dumping fertilizers and etc. As it was said for producing food on the fields we are using 85% of the water. In my opinion the main concern should be about the water. Because if we will run out from our water resources we won't be able to grow anything. On the other hand governments of different countries should be more concerned about suburban areas where there is a lot land on which farmers could produce goods. But in order for farmers to start doing that, the government should help them out. Because competition on the market is really big. By doing so the prices on the food will decrease, which may allow African countries to buy food for much cheaper prices. With nowadays prices on food, there is no way African countries could allow them self to go out on the market.
It is hard to say if there is a solution, and if people will ever come to the right way of using our land for producing goods. Right now everybody is paying a lot of money for the gasoline, but nobody does not think that one day the water will cost all most the same as the gasoline. Human kind is destroying there resources and especially water by dumping fertilizers and etc. As it was said for producing food on the fields we are using 85% of the water. In my opinion the main concern should be about the water. Because if we will run out from our water resources we won't be able to grow anything. On the other hand governments of different countries should be more concerned about suburban areas where there is a lot land on which farmers could produce goods. But in order for farmers to start doing that, the government should help them out. Because competition on the market is really big. By doing so the prices on the food will decrease, which may allow African countries to buy food for much cheaper prices. With nowadays prices on food, there is no way African countries could allow them self to go out on the market.
I believe food scarcity is a myth. There is enough food in the planet to make everybody fat. The underdeveloped countries do not have an efficient economic system to exploit their resources to the maximum. The lack of education is the main factor to an underdevelop country. If there is no knowledge of how to create and maintain agricultural industries there cannot be enough food for all in an underdevelop region like Africa. As numerus studies show, the major problem for any undervelop country is lack of education and corrupt political system. There is no mystery on these issues. The only solution is education through time and allowing the country to help itself from within, starting from its people changing their thinking and other countries can only help by creating organizations that sponsor education in African countries and around the world in areas with the same problems.
The world is divided into two parts: the “developed” and the “under-developed”. While many of the world’s people struggle to obtain shelter, water and enough food and energy and protein, in developed countries some of those are so abundant that problems of excess are seen. While people deprived of adequate food intake suffer poor growth (33,000 children die every day!) and adults are underweight and suffering severe protein-energy malnutrition, overconsumption in the “developed” world leads to the other extreme: chronic diseases, heart disease, cancer, and obesity….the killers of the Western Civilization. It is not difficult to see, that all we that needs to be done is a redistribution of resources and knowledge, which would lead to a way of “socialism”, where everyone would have as much as they need, but not in excess of their needs. Logically, this would be the correct way; however, as we are all aware, unless some epic event occurs, human greed is much too powerful to allow for such a radical shift. A very nice depiction is in this short clip “The Story of Stuff” – highly recommend you watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8
I believe a resolution to this problem would be to use the land from these rural parts of the world to increase the production of food via farms and cattle with natural pesticides to prevent an increase of greenhouse gasses. This would not only offer more jobs and food to the people but financial support to the economy of that specific country as well from importing. Assumably over time this would allow more schools to be build and the expansion of education will increase living standards .
The world can increase the rate of food production using technology and changing our eating habits. If combined those we can get food containing nutritional ingredients in small portions. In that way we can fight against hunger and obesity. The exponiental growth of human rate population is an issue that solution stays in education, religion, and real action from go vernments. As Maltus proposed several years ago,by gradually reducing the number of people qualifying for relief. Also, an strict birth control have to be place upon not only in the Africans countries. In the US there are millions of people living from the welfare and they rate of birth is high. Eliminate gradually the tax benefits for family that exceds certain number of children. I know all of my suggestions are hard to put in action, but something has to be done before the hunger kill millions of earth's inhabitants. October 20, 2010 2:18 PM
The actual world situation is scaring. People are doing politics and speculate bla bla bla without taking care of the reality. The fact is that water is essential to life. 97% of Earth's water belong to the Ocean, 2% is locked in the forms of ice in glaciers and polar regions and only less than 1% is freshwater in lakes, streams, rivers, and below Earth's surface. On the other hand, the world population is closed than 7 billion people. We need water for the plants and the crops to feed people. Nowadays, we have less cultivable land with an exponential human reproduction. We must slow down the rate of human reproduction while we increase the level of agricultural production. In addition, it is mandatory to educate the whole world population regarding these issues.
Diego Delgado:In my opinion, this topic is very hard to discuss and comment because everybody has different opinions about this controversial problem around the world. I think the government has to deal with this. I have been reading a book about African oil, and they explained that many oil companies in Nigeria get advantage of their oil but people never see the money of the oil. Who is taking that money? Money is also the problem for this issue. Even though every country is fighting against poverty and hunger, do we think they are going to give food for free? I don’t think so
25 comments:
This is another great discussion because it affects all of us who are members of the human race. I actually would do like Ross Perot, and put the best minds together to iron out the most realistic solutions. The reason we need the greatest minds to attack the problem is because it is not that simple. There are a lot of factors and possible helpful solutions which can play into this.
First, we need to really launch a task force to study the problem, and once we receive all the valid data, we can go to work. The answers to the hunger problem are going to be very difficult to obtain and even harder to implementthe solutions. It seems as if most of the hunger is systemically at it's worst in Africa.
I believe in the "give a man a fish and he eats for a day or teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" theory. Just dumping bags of food on these regions is only a short term band- aid approach. I believe in attacking this problem with a world wide effort by providing seed, training, and help with the cultivation of potential grow fields. If we can obtain a plentiful supply of growing fields , we can have these people begin to see a sustainable source for nutrients.
In addition, I am hopeful that we can continue to supply these regions with clean water sources. The failure of helping these poor regions to obtain growth is indicative of lack of funding in almost all cases. I am almost sure that these great people are more than willing to work hard... get up early and work until late to better their lives. Let us give them a hand by implementing a world wide initiative with plenty of funding.
The answer to this situation is the same as for all the other problems we face. The solution is education and evolution. Education and evolution are very similar in the aspect that it takes several years to see its benefits. In today’s times there are more highly educated people walking this earth then ever before. With that said lets test how smart we have become.
Test questions,
1. We have heard about going green for over ten years now. Then why don’t people recycle, watch water consumption and carry plastic water bottles.
2. There has been over ten years of marketing the benefits of wearing a seat belt.
3. There has been over ten years of marking to drink “responsibly”
How did we do? If you would to grade us on accomplishing these simple adaptations with our “great” intelligent society, would we pass?
Throughout history living things have adapted (evolved) in order to continue to exist. For those species which did not are found in our museums; like the dinosaurs (poor them, it’s not their fault a meter hit). Maybe one day we will be part of an exhibit.
Tatiana supports the "give a man a fish and he eats for a day or teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime" theory. However when you teach a man to fish he also will catch all of the fish so that there will be none left for you to eat. It would be okay to teach a man to fish if there were only two of you. However, the problem we face is not that people don't know how to grow their food. It is that there are too many people to feed with the crops that they can grow. How about some form of education into birth control? It seems that in very poor countries families tend to have a lot of offspring due to the high mortalty rate. Perhaps spending money on building roads and basic infrastructure such as hospitals and schools to help their economy and survival rate would go a long way in helping the poorer peoples, such as sub saharan africa, as opposed to giving them free handouts of food.
We are exceedingly disobedient when it comes to our natural resources, especially with agriculture and oil, with that our population is growing and our resources fall short. And with deforestation, we are just killing our planet. What’s the point of talking about overpopulation if we won’t have a planet to live on? I absolutely disagree with limiting the amount of births in a household to one child. In a perfect world, that would be an ideal system. And in a perfect world we wouldn’t have poverty and people starving; and we wouldn’t be having this discussion but we don’t live in a perfect world. Moreover, using this method as way to cut down the numbers of people in the world because we are unable to support them now is not the way to go. Whether you are given one child or multiples, naturally, is not our decision. Telling someone from a third world country to limit child birth is wrong because they don’t have the resources like we do when it comes to contraception. What they need is to be educated. Those people are having shortage problems because they are not well-informed on how to control the land. What we need to do, since we have the upper hand, is to invest more time in these underdeveloped nations, work with them, and educate them more.
This topic is a huge issue in the world right now and will take a very long time to be fixed. I feel that the number one solution in this situation is education. People need to be smarter in the way food is produced, need to change their current habits, and need to stop ignoring problems. People in Africa are in desperate need to be taught how to change their current situation. It doesn’t make sense that in American there is too much food, and Africa there is not enough. One of the reasons for this is because of the overpopulation of the country, which just leads to an underdeveloped country and lack of food. Especially since the population has been increasing, there is too great of a demand for food production. Unfortunately we do not have enough resources to provide everyone with their needs. What I find extremely terrible is that we are eating away all of the other species and our nature; animals, forests, farms, etc. We are destroying all of it. Not only are we consuming it, but also we are poisoning it with pesticides and fertilizers, which just end up polluting the earth. All of these problems need to be resolved through organizations that will come up with plans to improve this situation.
I agree with Tatiana's give a man a fish quote and Andrew counter with it as well. Although, in my opinion, it's not so really the population where the main problem is, although it can be a factor and would lessen if birth control education were more efficient. But regarding the agricultural sense, it's not so much the supply of food that is a problem, i personally see it's the DISTRIBUTION of food. Believe it or not, the world is vast and food is produced over and over again, and the world itself recycles so food never stops to exist, and the quantity is vast, it's the distribution of food that has the problem. Do you know how many tons of pounds of food are thrown away each single day due to it spoiling because noone uses it or buy's it before it's due because of a big supply in the stores, people can only buy so much in one place while the rest of the food stocks up. And do you know the amount of people who starve because there's "no food"? so theres an abundant of food in one place and none in another... isn't that a bit of a contradiction? There's world hungry and yet theres food being wasted... how is that even logically possible? Re-analising how food is distributed would help with world hunger.
Access and affordability is also a major issue when addressing this critical matter. While the food baskets of the world need to increase production to feed other nations we must keep it affordable. For one, growing crops to produce bio fuel is a terrible idea. Not only will this limit the grains to feed the world but also cause havoc on all standards if there is a bad year in farming. Access to food is also a major issue while in America we eat 9 times more than people in Africa we must finds ways in developing nations for them as well be able to produce farm land for them to produce in their country to feed there people.
Carlos L.
Unfortunately hunger and poverty keep growing around the world while the increase of food production is slowing down. Authorities in the most affected countries should develop agricultural research to be able to lower the prices of food. Also, the government should educate people about the importance of a good and healthy nutrition. Another solution would be that in countries where the population is growing faster than the food production the government should get involved to try to prevent over population. Usually lower income and poor families tend to have more children than high income families and I think one of the main reason it is lack of education. The government should educate people to prevent over population at least while the food production is slowly increasing.
All of these issues tie into each other. The manner that one issue such as lack of education is handled affects another issue such as poverty, which then affects another such as over population. I think the basic place to start with these issues is education. Educate people on ways to prevent and manage these problems that arising around the world. Education in general no matter how it is applied may be too slow to show progress for some people but it is the one thing that can provide a more permanent solution to these problems and provide better outcomes than just on the spot remedies that fix some of the problems for a bit. Better distribution of resources such as agriculture, systems to make clean water, and a sort of governmental structure would be a big help as well. Also I think that different governments should work collectively instead of handling these issues independently. Clearly the way things are being handled is not the way to continue forward.
Ashley Mueller-Gomez
What makes all of this even worse is that not many of us take the time to help out. Even though we know that we are accumulating needless amount of food and tings, we still wont stop. We have the tendency to belief that we need them to survive but in actuality not of that is needed. Then by allowing ourselves such pleasures, we take them away from others. Those pleasures are also taken for granted by us, while in others they would fight just for an instance of the same things we enjoy.
Interesting topic.
How can the world increase the rate of food production and still achieve sustainability? With the population rate increasing, I don't think that the rate of food production will ever catch up. The only way I think that the food population can stay stable with the population, is only if humans stop reproducing and we all know that for a fact it won't happen.
The world hunger is a serious case and sometimes I feel bad that there are times where I waste food knowing that there are people in the world that are starving and don't even know when they're next meal will be or If they'll even have a meal. How can we stop the world from the poverty of food?
All the food that is produced in the US can feed all of Africa if only we spend the time and money on investing on these underdeveloped nations. We produce enough food to feed ourselves and other nations, and not go hungry ourselves.
There's too much food in the developed countries, and not enough in the developing countries.
Lack of resources is a primary concern in regions such as suda-Sahara Africa. There is over population and barely any food to be distributed. And I agree with Ruben, the solution will be Evolution and Education.
This is a very interesting topic. Food production it has always been a huge concern and the more the population grows , the bigger the problem is.
My opinion is that each and one of us has to contribute in some way , we cant wait for the Government to do this because they are so concentrated in their own issues that if we leave this all to them they will never finish with the problem . Everyone has to commit and help the people that really needs it , never wasting any food or contributing to foundations that take care of it . If each and everyone starts making a change i think we can have a big change in a few years.
okay so this topic isn't so great to discuss but then again what topic is. my opinion in this topic is maybe we should all think more about the amounts of foods we consume a day for waste. i mean think about it how many of us dont cook a meal for 50 people and buy supplies for 100? i mean come on how much food arnt we throwing away. we should really think about those in need when it comes to those situations. and how about the supermarkets give away food as well. i mean instead of putting everything for sale two days before it expires, cause thats what the super markets do, how about they send those foods out to the people in need. i mean they would consume better us of it then us just hey on sale i dont need it but ill put it in the shelf and in the end it just gets thrown out. theres just so many possiable thins we could do, we just really need to work together, the smallest thing would make the biggest difference i belive.
I never realized how many people live in absolute poverty. I think that lack of education is a big factor in all of this. As for the rest of us, I think that we really need to get things changing or else I see our future generations living in a completely different world than the one we live in now. I also agree that we each should be an example of sustainability to show others that it’s possible and encourage them to do same. It takes just take easy steps like recycling, shopping locally, reducing waste, etc. Think about the change we can create us by taking small step.
Veronica Ramos
I know how important food and water is and I am very sad that we have this much pain and suffering in the world. I do believe that the governments in Africa primarily treat their populations unfairly by hoarding oil money. The corruption in this country is beyond belief. Africa today is a rich continent because of all of its natural resources like the conflict minerals in the congo region and the light sweet crude found off the western coast. The governments throughout the continent are keeping the wealth out of the hands of the people.
The issue of population outgrowing food source is something that has been a growing concern since the late 1700s. A British economist named Thomas Malthus addressed this about 200 years ago in a famous essay titled, "Essay on population." He also concluded that population would outgrow food source. I think that the food shortage is a problem, but I only think it is a problem because people are having more children then they can support (mostly in poorer families). Sometimes it is not taken into account that a child needs food, and food cost money, when you do not have enough money you will not have enough food. I agree with Andrew that we should give information about birth control, and other ways to limit population. When population starts to grow out of control, famine, disease, and natural disasters occur; this is nature’s way of keeping the population in check. America cannot just start giving handouts of food to these countries, our prices would rise and we would be getting less. I can’t imagine that someone would be happy paying full price for half the amount of something. Like Tatiana said, “Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” With that said, Teach these countries the ways to control their population, and how to plant and farm their own crops, they’ll eat for a lifetime.
Daisy Gigantana said...
I believed in sustainable environment. We should get recycling seriously. I know that Miami-Dade implement recycling in which I applaud. I just wish that everyone would participate. If and everyone of us do our part, this will lead to less tree usage, less garbage that end up in landfill, less energy consumption. On the positive side, more new products can be re-made of the recycle parts. We should utilize solar and wind energy. Maybe mass market electric or fuel cell cars that give us reduce emissions which help the environment.
I want to discuss water consumption. Yes, we are worried about food production. But we still need to focus on clean water. Unfortunately, corporations gobble up water consumption when raising crops in which more than two-thirds of water used is clean water. Not a lot a people know that this will lead to less water consumption to the rest of the population especially in some states who are experiencing drought and waging war in water usage. Also, using fertilizer add problems to maintaining clean water. When the fertilizer seeps into the ground, somehow it finds its way to our aquifers and threatens our water resources. Even the damage affects our rivers, lakes, and oceans. I don’t have any solutions, but I wish that our government or companies would invest in new technology that uses ocean water and turn it into clean water.
Although, some of the developing nation don’t have access to the food supplies due to high prices for people who can’t afford. But we can feed the world since we have enough food supplies and still the food distribution does not channel correctly to the people who really needs it because of affordability. We could also support the local farmers in doing so leads to less transportation emission and at the same time help the local economy.
It is hard to say if there is a solution, and if people will ever come to the right way of using our land for producing goods. Right now everybody is paying a lot of money for the gasoline, but nobody does not think that one day the water will cost all most the same as the gasoline. Human kind is destroying there resources and especially water by dumping fertilizers and etc. As it was said for producing food on the fields we are using 85% of the water. In my opinion the main concern should be about the water. Because if we will run out from our water resources we won't be able to grow anything.
On the other hand governments of different countries should be more concerned about suburban areas where there is a lot land on which farmers could produce goods. But in order for farmers to start doing that, the government should help them out. Because competition on the market is really big. By doing so the prices on the food will decrease, which may allow African countries to buy food for much cheaper prices. With nowadays prices on food, there is no way African countries could allow them self to go out on the market.
It is hard to say if there is a solution, and if people will ever come to the right way of using our land for producing goods. Right now everybody is paying a lot of money for the gasoline, but nobody does not think that one day the water will cost all most the same as the gasoline. Human kind is destroying there resources and especially water by dumping fertilizers and etc. As it was said for producing food on the fields we are using 85% of the water. In my opinion the main concern should be about the water. Because if we will run out from our water resources we won't be able to grow anything.
On the other hand governments of different countries should be more concerned about suburban areas where there is a lot land on which farmers could produce goods. But in order for farmers to start doing that, the government should help them out. Because competition on the market is really big. By doing so the prices on the food will decrease, which may allow African countries to buy food for much cheaper prices. With nowadays prices on food, there is no way African countries could allow them self to go out on the market.
I believe food scarcity is a myth. There is enough food in the planet to make everybody fat. The underdeveloped countries do not have an efficient economic system to exploit their resources to the maximum. The lack of education is the main factor to an underdevelop country. If there is no knowledge of how to create and maintain agricultural industries there cannot be enough food for all in an underdevelop region like Africa. As numerus studies show, the major problem for any undervelop country is lack of education and corrupt political system. There is no mystery on these issues. The only solution is education through time and allowing the country to help itself from within, starting from its people changing their thinking and other countries can only help by creating organizations that sponsor education in African countries and around the world in areas with the same problems.
The world is divided into two parts: the “developed” and the “under-developed”. While many of the world’s people struggle to obtain shelter, water and enough food and energy and protein, in developed countries some of those are so abundant that problems of excess are seen. While people deprived of adequate food intake suffer poor growth (33,000 children die every day!) and adults are underweight and suffering severe protein-energy malnutrition, overconsumption in the “developed” world leads to the other extreme: chronic diseases, heart disease, cancer, and obesity….the killers of the Western Civilization. It is not difficult to see, that all we that needs to be done is a redistribution of resources and knowledge, which would lead to a way of “socialism”, where everyone would have as much as they need, but not in excess of their needs. Logically, this would be the correct way; however, as we are all aware, unless some epic event occurs, human greed is much too powerful to allow for such a radical shift. A very nice depiction is in this short clip “The Story of Stuff” – highly recommend you watch it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8
I believe a resolution to this problem would be to use the land from these rural parts of the world to increase the production of food via farms and cattle with natural pesticides to prevent an increase of greenhouse gasses. This would not only offer more jobs and food to the people but financial support to the economy of that specific country as well from importing. Assumably over time this would allow more schools to be build and the expansion of education will increase living standards .
sergio said...
The world can increase the rate of food production using technology and changing our eating habits. If combined those we can get food containing nutritional ingredients in small portions. In that way we can fight against hunger and obesity. The exponiental growth of human rate population is an issue that solution stays in education, religion, and real action from go vernments. As Maltus proposed several years ago,by gradually reducing the number of people qualifying for relief. Also, an strict birth control have to be place upon not only in the Africans countries. In the US there are millions of people living from the welfare and they rate of birth is high.
Eliminate gradually the tax benefits for family that exceds certain number of children. I know all of my suggestions are hard to put in action, but something has to be done before the hunger kill millions of earth's inhabitants.
October 20, 2010 2:18 PM
The actual world situation is scaring. People are doing politics and speculate bla bla bla without taking care of the reality. The fact is that water is essential to life. 97% of Earth's water belong to the Ocean, 2% is locked in the forms of ice in glaciers and polar regions and only less than 1% is freshwater in lakes, streams, rivers, and below Earth's surface. On the other hand, the world population is closed than 7 billion people. We need water for the plants and the crops to feed people. Nowadays, we have less cultivable land with an exponential human reproduction. We must slow down the rate of human reproduction while we increase the level of agricultural production. In addition, it is mandatory to educate the whole world population regarding these issues.
Diego Delgado:In my opinion, this topic is very hard to discuss and comment because everybody has different opinions about this controversial problem around the world. I think the government has to deal with this. I have been reading a book about African oil, and they explained that many oil companies in Nigeria get advantage of their oil but people never see the money of the oil. Who is taking that money? Money is also the problem for this issue. Even though every country is fighting against poverty and hunger, do we think they are going to give food for free? I don’t think so
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