how does food shortage influence the environment
Answers
introduction
Food shortage is a serious problem facing the world and is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. The scarcity of food is caused by economic, environmental and social factors such as crop failure, overpopulation and poor government policies are the main cause of food scarcity in most countries. Environmental factors determine the kind of crops to be produced in a given place, economic factors determine the buying and production capacity and socio-political factors determine distribution of food to the masses. Food shortage has far reaching long and short term negative impacts which include starvation, malnutrition, increased mortality and political unrest. There is need to collectively address the issue of food insecurity using both emergency and long term measures. This article discusses the concept of food shortage in the world, highlighting the causes, effects and possible solutions (UNU, 1998).
answer
There are a number of short term effects of food shortage. The impact on children, mothers and elderly are very evident as seen in malnutrition and hunger related deaths. It reduces class concentration among school going children and also reduced playground and social activities which are essential for their growth. Mothers have less energy to take care of their toddlers and also for verbal interaction (McDonald, Sigman, Michael & Neumann, nd). Children succumb to hunger within short period as they cannot stand long period of starvation and they die even before the arrival of emergency assistance. Many years of drought combined by civil wars in Somalia has resulted into Somali refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia as they flee the country to seek for food and safety (BBC, 2011). Most children among the fleeing Somali’s are highly malnourished as most fleeing elders and children succumb to death on the way and a few days after arriving in the refugee camp.
There are a number of short term effects of food shortage. The impact on children, mothers and elderly are very evident as seen in malnutrition and hunger related deaths. It reduces class concentration among school going children and also reduced playground and social activities which are essential for their growth. Mothers have less energy to take care of their toddlers and also for verbal interaction (McDonald, Sigman, Michael & Neumann, nd). Children succumb to hunger within short period as they cannot stand long period of starvation and they die even before the arrival of emergency assistance. Many years of drought combined by civil wars in Somalia has resulted into Somali refugees in Kenya and Ethiopia as they flee the country to seek for food and safety (BBC, 2011). Most children among the fleeing Somali’s are highly malnourished as most fleeing elders and children succumb to death on the way and a few days after arriving in the refugee camp.There are also long term effects of food shortage. These include increase in the price of food as a result demand and supply forces. Increasing cost of food production due to the increase in fuel prices coupled with persistent drought in grain producing regions has contributed to the increase in the price of food in the world. Increase in oil price led to increase in the price of fertilizers, transportation of food and also industrial agriculture. These factors were supplemented with increased demand for varied diet among the growing middle class Asian population and falling food stock piles contributed to global in food prices (Watson, nd). Increasing food prices culminated in political instability and social unrest in several nations across the globe in 2007, in countries of Mexico, Cameroon, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh among other nations (Kamdor, 2007).