Food Insecurity Essay

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Life On The Margins – Food Insecurity ‘Population increase is the root cause of food insecurity’ Figure 1 Figure 1 Population growth Figure 2 Figure 2 Rapid population growth. Poor African and Third World countries have the highest growth rate in the world as shown on figure 1 which puts them at increased risk of food crises. For example, the population of Niger increased from 2.5 million to 15 million from 1950 to 2010. According to some estimations, Africa will produce enough food for only about a quarter population by 2025 if the current growth rate will continue which is alarming to say the least. The continuous rising demand enforces the supply to increase in value and this is catastrophic for most African countries. In Asia it’s a similar story however at a later stage as majority of the rapid growth in population has occurred and now countries such as India and China have gigantic populations with both powerhouses exceeding 1.2 billion people as presented on figure 2. This in itself contributes heavily to food insecurity as the sheer number of people suggests major demand and so insufficient capacity to cope. Due to the rapidly increasing and already extremely high number of people there are other consequences that are tied in which relate to food insecurity, for example transport, dependent on how good, determines the level of distribution. Also literacy rates comes under this as greater number of children which suggests a very high demand for education which in some of these fast growing countries is a luxury and so implies lower literacy rates on average and so leads on to lower quality jobs and pay which therefore indicates dependent for food and not secure. Climate Change Some experts suggest that drought and extreme weather in regions affected by food crises in the recent decades could be a result of climate change, especially in the West
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