The twentieth century is a century of globalization and scientific progress. Mankind has conquered space, tamed the energy of the atom, unraveled the many secrets of mother nature. At the same time, the twentieth century brought us a number of global problems - environmental, demographic, energy, socio-economic. In this article we will talk in detail about one of them. It will be about the causes, scope and possible solutions to the food problem.
The problem of hunger: figures and facts
The population of the Earth is growing steadily. But natural resources, alas, no. If at the beginning of the last century our planet fed one and a half billion people, today this figure has grown to 7.5 billion.
Such a rapid population growth simply could not but aggravate the food problem. Actually, they first started talking about it a hundred years ago. So, the Brazilian scientist Jose de Castro in his work “The Geography of Hunger”, published at the beginning of the twentieth century, wrote that almost two thirds of the world's population is in a state of constant hunger.
Nowadays, the situation has improved markedly, but the problem itself has not disappeared. According to UN reports, one in nine people in the modern world is still malnourished. Most malnourished and starving people (about 85%) are in developing countries. These are, first of all, the poorest states of Central and South Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. For example, a third of the inhabitants of Haiti (the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere) do not receive the daily amount of calories needed.
The world food problem is one of the most important and most acute global problems of our time. It is expressed in a banal shortage of food products caused by insufficient development of productive forces, adverse climatic conditions, military conflicts or political upheavals.
Geography of hunger
In social geography, there is such a thing as a "hunger belt." It stretches on both sides of the equator and covers the territories of tropical Africa, Central America, South and Southeast Asia (in general - about 40 countries of the world).
The most difficult situation is observed in countries such as Chad, Somalia, Uganda, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Mali and Haiti. Here, the number of hungry and malnourished people exceeds 40%. Currently, the food problem is quite acute in Yemen, Syria, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, as well as in eastern Ukraine.
Along with quantitative, one should also take into account the qualitative indicators of human nutrition. After all, improper or malnutrition not only reduces performance, but also provokes the development of a number of dangerous diseases. So, according to estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 40% of the inhabitants of our planet regularly experience a lack of certain vitamins and minerals.
The main causes of the food problem
So, what is causing the problem of hunger and malnutrition? There are a number of possible reasons. We will highlight only the most basic of them:
- Rapid population growth.
- Unevenness in the distribution of the Earth's population.
- Increasing the degree of urbanization and industrialization of territories.
- Socio-economic backwardness of some countries of the world.
- Land degradation, in particular, soil pollution by pesticides, heavy metals and other harmful substances.
- Decrease in productivity of cereal crops.
- Irrational use of land resources.
- Reduction of arable land.
- Shortage of pure fresh water.
Ways to solve the food problem
Nowadays, a number of international, public and private organizations, intergovernmental commissions and institutions are addressing the problem of hunger. They are joined by global financial and commercial structures, in particular, the IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). They finance numerous projects aimed at developing the agro-industrial sector in developing countries.
At the same time, scientists are involved in the theoretical aspects of the crisis. In their competence is the search for possible solutions to the food problem. Among those, it is worth highlighting the following:
- Qualitative and structural changes in the process of food production.
- Modernization of agriculture, the formation of a steadily growing agro-industrial sector in backward states.
- Active development of biotechnology.
- Improving infrastructure outside large cities - branding of rural areas.
- Carrying out economic reforms in developing countries of the world, increasing the purchasing power of their population.
- The introduction of the fruits of scientific and technological progress in the agricultural sector of the economy.
- Development of human capital, provision of conditions and opportunities for education of the poor.
The provision of humanitarian assistance to poor and developing countries plays a role in mitigating the effects of the food crisis.
UN Food Program
Among the key goals of the United Nations are ensuring peace and security on the planet, as well as eliminating all sorts of global threats. The United Nations World Food Program (WFP), founded in 1961, is the largest humanitarian organization in the world. Every year, it provides real assistance to at least 300 million people living in 80 countries. About 20 million of them are children.
The main objectives of the mission are the fight against hunger and improving the quality of food in third world countries. Each year, the organization distributes over twelve billion food packages worth $ 0.31 each. Every day, about a hundred aircraft and almost five thousand trucks deliver food to those who need them most. Including in remote or war-ridden regions of Africa and Asia.
