Covert famine
Equal distribution of resources is not the answer to a continuous lively society. If the resources are controlled by few rich industrialists, monopoly market comes to picture. Here, prices can be manipulated with ease without fearing its consequences. In developed countries, food resources are with the hands of rare precious marketing companies. Few years back, people thought this was a wonderful model to show case the growth of economy. After 20 years, developed countries begin to realize the dangerous consequences of limiting essential resources to limited multimedia companies. Ultimately, government of the day can have control over price rise, due to price deregulating of prices. Pro people government of developed countries begins to stop marketing monopolies of essential commodities. Now, these multi-national companies, who have been enjoying from price monopoly, are currently searching for new breed grounds where they can continue to enjoy abundant benefits in monetary matters.
Developed countries governments are forcing developing countries especially countries from BRICS countries. BRICS is the union of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. These five countries are on the verge of becoming developed countries within two to three decades. These countries have high middle level consumers. They can spend a huge sum of money for marketing. Scheduled to open in the economic sector, more and more companies are entering into these countries and gaining more and more potential customers. The only area that is still not covered under globalization till this date is the area of agriculture. Currently developed countries are pressuring BRICS countries to permit monopoly in agricultural and food sectors. India being predominantly, an agricultural country, with cosmic history of agriculture since the days of Indus civilization. The same technique of agriculture is there all over India. Big marketing giants want to capture Indian population’s demand for food and for this they will like to eliminate the middle man and small shop keepers.
Government of the day must be apprehensive before taking these huge decisions. This year, United Nations urges wealthy countries to save food. Most of multi national companies of rich and developed countries who are dealing with foods and agricultural products, from time to time try to waste the surplus food products in order to control price decline. In this manner, they can show that food is not the residual state. For this, United Nations advises affluent countries to save food.
Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) presents some worrying statistics on the deliberate wasting of food products. One third of cultivated produces is wasted deliberately each year around the world. The size of this waste is 130 core tones. Think about the poor who hardly get a meal per day. The conditions of child in some of the African countries are worrying factors. There are many screenshots one can find in newspapers and infotainment channels. Yet, no one seems to be worrying about their feeding. According to FAO website, “This domain contains a consolidated set of statistics related to food security. Main themes covered are food deprivation, food needs, food consumption, production and trade, diet composition, access to food, food aid and child nutritional status.”
The amount of waste food amounts to equal production of foods in the entire African continent. With these foods eradication of hunger and mal-nutrient in these extreme poverty ridden areas can be fulfilled. With adequate food security, children can reach school for proper elementary education. Expected mothers can eat plenty of foods in this duration and reduces percentages of child mortality. It improves maternal health. It improves mental health of the child. With adequate foods at your doorstep, it is for perpetual derision of the environment will reduce further. It is good for the environment to protect the ozone layer. Even today, one out of seven persons in world sleep with hunger. Each year 20,000 kids below five years dies due to lack of food. According to “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012” annual United Nations report on the state of food security status, “growth will not necessarily result in better nutrition for all. policies and programmes that will ensure “nutrition-sensitive” growth include supporting increased dietary diversity, improving access to safe drinking water, sanitation and health services and educating consumers regarding adequate nutrition and child care practices.”
It is high time developed countries must realize the potential of saving surplus foods. They can send these goods to third world countries. Developing countries like India should not think that by announcing and making policies, poverty and nutritional deaths will decrease. Safe drinking water, good sanitation, proper health care and low cost of medicines should be the proper way to bring forward the weaker section of people.
How does international price volatility affect domestic economies and food security?
Some big countries able to cope with price rise syndromes, but the state of small countries is worse. They are deeply affected by price volatility in the international sector. Owing to this agrarian productivity is on a sharp decline. People are paying more for some food. Price rise decreases the spending capacity of middle class customers. This is worry trend. Awaited to increase commercialisation of food trades and breaking of hub and spoke rule of marketing, price volatility is here to stay in agriculture and food productivity. It leads to “policy paralysis” on the part of government. This can produce hazardous effects on domestic agricultural production. Large countries restrict the trades to protect their domestic market from international price volatility. On the other hand small, African countries had to suffer the burnt of extreme price rise in agricultural production.
With economy is an up rise trend, in developed countries and some developing countries like India, where there is a strong and passionate middle class, they want to spend more on foods. In this manner, the domestic price of foods goes upwards slope and this can hurt poor people in those countries. On the other hand extreme food prices, can contribute a stronger agricultural productivity in the long run. This trend should continue and can inadequate to sustain their life within this period of constraint. So what should be the solution to this epidemic of food insecurity? The government of the day should build a “safety net” for farmers as well as poor and deprived. With this they can, make some buffer stock for those people who cannot cope with the rising price and other related economic imbalances. Cost effective agriculture and participation of genuine private sectors in building a proper bulk of needed investment can help to relieve optimal utilization of available related natural resources.
Leftover foods wasted, and this rises to destruction of natural resources. It affects negatively towards concerned natural resources. With this huge resource of water, energy is wasted. The number of undernourished people in the world remains unacceptable awfully close to one billion. The decisive factor of this figure is that most of the there are fewer numbers of poor in Asia compare to the last decade. This figure is encouraging to Asian countries. Countries with protracted crisis need to go with short term measures to avoid further sliding. The government of the day should stress more on agriculture and food productivity budgets. Most of the countries ignore this by issuing mere four percentages of finance from the entire budget to agrarian production. Social protection and risk reduction in agricultural sectors should be the order of the day and government and non-governmental organization should actively involve in this. Innovations in food procurement, proper food assistance tools, safety nets, appropriate food security insurances in various services, such as health care and education can provide the short term passage of growth and food security for the poorer masses.
In India, over 60 percentages of food go on wasting owing to diverse situations. Proper food preservation and appropriate cold storage facilities should be there for storing of foods in times of rainy days. We should know that, 25 percentages of the entire land areas are currently employed in pastoral works. Wastages of 70 percentages of sweetened water and 80 percentages of deforestation and 30 percentages of green house gas effect are wasted with agrarian production. That is why when foods are decayed, with it considerable energy waste continued simultaneously. Decaying foods reduce return productivity of lands. It imparts negatively on land's productivity in the long term. Decaying foods can kill helpful enzymes hidden inside soil. This leads to food insecurity, when people must live with hunger and fear starvation. It is high time to implement advance form of cultivation which is good for land as well as people. It should not have environmental hazards.
Farmers must go for organic fertilizers. They are using chemical fertilizers, to have a short term gain. It can have profound impart on an undeveloped field. The fertile land can become barren ones. This can enhance the lack of foods. Demand will exceed supply side. This leads to hunger and mortality. Hunger relates with mortality around the world. Hunger can become a "covert famine". Slowly it decreases undeveloped immune system of your body. Strength to fight diseases decreases considerably within a short span of time. This leads to inadequate food intake, lack of essential nutrients within body, underweight and vulnerable. Hungry and malnourished children die easily. Malnourished children lack access to adequate water, housing and sanitation. Hunger reduces the productivity and it causes the development skills among humans. Micro-nutrient deficiencies and anaemia deficiencies seriously decrease productivity of skilled workers. Their body is prone to diseases due to absent of vital nutrients that help to protect the human body.
Robert Fogel Nobel Prize winning economist has pointed out that hungry people cannot remove poverty all by themselves. About two hundred years behind, 20 percentages people of England and France were malnourished and poor. It reduces capital work force in industries during the industrial revolution. Government acted and within some years this ration reduced further. Then, the rate of growth of skilled worker to productivity ratio rose sharply. This shows greedy people cannot remove their hunger all by themselves.
Worldwide draught, unfavourable conditions, wars, economic depression, adverse weather and past conflicts create a negative impact on food production. Countless have exhausted their assets and have huge liabilities. Farmers unable to buy live stock production utilities. In India, there are numerous instances of farmer’s committing suicide after entering into loan traps. Before Afghanistan war, the country was reeling under heavy food grain shortages. Scheduled to rise of dollar prices the local currency value is going from bad to worse. People devalued their money and had to stay with starvation for days. In 1992, after fearsome natural disaster, in most of maize production areas of Africa continents, most lands became barren and undeveloped. Then, a colossal lack of foods within these areas became a grave concern. As Robert Fogel said, poor people cannot remove poverty. In this instance, after a few years some help from developing countries and the United Nations, all those barren lands revived into fertile lands and slowly African countries depending upon maize are reaching a stable economic revival.
Soil fertility can be improved through rehabilitation of degraded lands and use of correct technology in farming. In India “watershed development project” brought forward 70 percentages of fertility land production capacities with constant supply of water throughout the year. Use of organic farming with concentrated irrigation facilities can prove to be a magic wand for farmers. The high yielding and high value organic crops require more water than fertilizers. Within the last 20 years, irrigation of lands increased in India, about 20 percentages to 70 percentages. Due to large scale irrigation facility, draught prone Gujarat is slowly turning into a region of cash crops. Similarly, state of Bihar is producing some rich cash crops like Guava and ground nut. Farmers are competing with one another to create record production in a particular strip of land. They are using organic methods with large scale irrigation facilities. Land degradation is a major worry for farmers. Rice production is on the rise due to green revolution. Slowly, in 1990s, due to unfavourable and similar cropping of rice, fertility of concerned lands declined further. Population growth was the primary factor of reducing fertility of land. In order to meet the continuous increase demands on the supply side, farmer had to break the rules of farming by cultivating rice’s two to three times in the same filed.
Depletion of environment, increase of population leads to deepened poverty. People should start this from their home. They should not waste foods. They should not throw foods in public places. According to some estimation, the way the population is on the rise, we would need two earths in 2030 to live here. Scientific strategies and innovation dealing with dietary diversities and food fortification along with supplements are countless strategies for micronutrient deficiencies. Modern organic farming has bio-fortification crops loaded with extraordinary amounts of micro-nutrients. In order to improve food fortification among children of a rural village in KwaZulu-Natal, South African government encourages residents to have kitchen gardens and they supplied the materials and necessary help to build it. The government encourages the production of Vitamin A rich crops. Within a year, there was a definite decline in underfed children in those hilly and mountainous regions. Government gave those seeds of “Golden Rice” a bit fortification organic rice rich with Vitamin A.
Priorities areas for removing poverty are:
1. Direct implementation of rural health program at their doorstep.
2. Sustainable use of natural resources.
3. Development of rural local market.
4. Investment in rural sectors.
5. Promoting organic farming.
6. Direct food supply to the poor.
7. Removing middle men for access.
8. Watch organization to remove corruption.
9. Extensive agricultural research and scientific innovation.
10. Investment in developing goal.
11. Accelerated progress in meeting that goal.
According to World Bank research, empowering women could be a fillip to remove hunger. Women who earn, concentrate more on feeding their family, than their counterpart men. It is a biological justification and with this the poverty within the family slowly reduces.
With all these discussions come to the light that the road ahead is not towards the jungle but towards an eight lane super expressway. There ought to be voluminous multi prong strategy to reduce poverty. Poor cannot eliminate poverty alone. It should be government and concerned non-governmental organization’s continuous pursuit towards making their life better. Advent of benefits at the doorstep of the poor is a must for accelerated development. Think before you eat. Eat necessary foods. Preserve foods. Minimize destruction of foods. Before you eat, think about poor who scarcely get meal a day.
Like it on Facebook, Tweet it or share this article on other bookmarking websites.