Is there a world food crisis If so, why Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Is there a world food crisis If so, why - Essay Example Floods have devastated Australia and Brazil’s agricultural production. Global weather trends in last year are exerting immense pressure on global food system which was already struggling to avoid a major breakdown (Micheal, n.d.). Linking with 2008 food crisis According to World Bank (2011) facts and figures, before the emergence of fuel and financial crisis, 1.1 billion people were living on less than one dollar a day. Another 923 million people were undernourished. Food prices continuously remain volatile. Despite of falling prices on international level, local food prices have not come down. According to Wiggin (2010) the fact is that 2008 food crisis was never actually left the world. It is true that we didn’t see food riots during 2009 and warehouse stores, such as Costco didn’t ration 20 pound packet of rice, however, the supplies continued to stay tight. Price for food items, such as, corn and wheat remained lower than that of 2008’s point; however, they never went at the point of pre-2008 food crisis. Primary farm commodities’ prices went higher in 2010 with corn 63 percent up, wheat 84 percent, sugar 55 percent, and soybean 24 percent up. Factor inducing global food crisis Global food shortages are ringing alarming bells for world leaders as it forced emergency meetings at U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization who stressed the need of immediate action(cited in Activist,2011).There are many reasons to this global food crisis, most cited are extreme weather conditions(Activist,2011)increasing population in particular in developing countries (Alexakha,2011) supply/demand imbalance(Brown,2011), and food (or oil) commodity speculation(Activist,2011). Supply-demand imbalance In past years, weather fluctuations caused a spike in commodity prices; however, it is both sides of the supply and demand equation that are directing the prices upwards now. If we consider demand side, the major factors are population growth, increasi ng affluence, and grains use to make fuel. While on supply side, the major culprits are soil erosion, aquifer depletion, plateauing of crop yield in certain agriculturally advanced countries, utilization of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, supply of irrigation water to cities (Brown, 2011). The supply and demand imbalance is being driven by increasing affluence, population growth. Increasing wealth in emerging economies, such as China and India where middle class is expanding and converting from grain diet to meat diet(Miller,2011).According to Brown(2011) nearly 3 billion people are moving up the food chain because they are eating more quantities of grain-intensive meat products. Milk, meat, and eggs consumption is increasing in developing countries. Currently, China’s meat needs are approximately double than that of USA’s. Furthermore, the world population is approximately doubled since 1970s.Every year; world population is increasing 80 million. Ever y night, there are 219,000 more