World Food Crisis

850 million people starving globally

1 billion obese people globally

Have you heard about the World Food Crisis? Well, there is a detrimental food crisis affecting the world. There is a shortage in staple foods that has caused soaring food inflation. A bag of rice raised 50% in 3 months. While this means only some inconveniences for us living on the top of the economic level of the world, meanwhile the poorest of the poor are starving of hunger. This problem disproportionately affects the poorer regions and there have already been food riots in Mexico India, Haiti, Bangladesh, Egypt & Paraguay. In some situations people are left malnourished or in violent food riots, in the worst situation they are dieing of hunger.

Causes of the World Food Crisis:

-Higher Fuel Prices

-Biofuels: The amount of land it takes to fill a tank of gas would feed a person for a year. Biofuels takes the corn out of the mouths of the poor and into the gas tanks of the world's rich. This is an a energy hungry planet and the high price we pay for energy has allowed the Biofuel companies pay top dollar to mais (corn) farmers in order to produce energy to fuel our household appliances & cars in the west.

-Bad weather in crop producing area. Because of global warming there were many floods or droughts in regions of India, Thailand, & Australia affecting the agriculural farming.

-A higher demand of meat, (which requires alot of grains to produce) from developing countries such as China & India due to their rapidly growing middle and upper classes who pay top dollar for meat. In most countries meat is a luxury eaten perphaps once a week, in the US & Europe meat is eaten in almost every meal. Essentially us in the western world we are taking the food out of of the belly's of the poor and into the belly's of livestock.

What needs to be done? The main thing that needs to be done is a worldwide effort to develop agriculture. The UN is working on that now and has invested in new crop production.

What we can do? We could avoid wasting food, fuel or energy. I will eat less meat and change my diet to mainly fruits, vegetables, fish, rice, beans & nuts (things that naturally grow from earth). Plant some fruits or veggies in my balcony garden and support the UN world food program by making donation or going to http://www.freerice.com/ to play a vocabulary game that donates rice to help end hunger.

Sincerely,

Bianca Lee