The Shortage of Food Problem - Essay Example

?Introduction The outpouring of heavy rain in other parts of the world and the intense heat on the other are associated with the string of ominous events in the global climate. According to Krugman in his article, the changing climate is specifically the root cause of recent food crisis. Adverse weather condition is associated with the increasing cost of goods due to prevailing lack of supplies or production. Krugman tries to emphasize that the origin and implication of food crisis is traced back to changing climate which resulted further to droughts and floods. The intense heat is said to be the reason why there is an ample amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. This is said to result to heavy raining which causes flood in certain parts of the world especially in the tropics. Krugman believes that this slows down food production that eventually becomes the greatest contributing factor of the recent food crisis. The issue of changing climate may not be far as reason to contribute to food crisis. In fact, the very thought about changing weather condition to affect food production and supply is very relevant enough as a reason. Heavy rain, typhoon and other environmental impacts brought by changing climate all over the world may not be far enough to affect production and supply of food. However, it seems that the issue of changing weather condition is just only in addition to the problem of food crisis. It cannot be entirely considered as the root cause of the problem on the lack of food production or supply in the world. There are prior issues to this that need to be considered that eventually have contributed to global food crisis. Population increase Food crisis is caused by rapidly increasing population in the world (Grigg, 1980). This is the reason why there is a need to come up with biotechnology and other related technological innovation in order to increase production and supply of food. Food production is necessary in order to meet the spiraling forward demand of the people. Increasing food production is eventually the answer to the number of world’s population and the corresponding demand for food. With biotechnology for instance, it has become a good idea to promote genetic modification of some plants and domestic animals in order to enhance their characteristics to eventually ensure more production. For instance, with BT corn technology, the plant’s characteristics are enhanced and improved to fight harmful pests and diseases. The result would be to enhance growth and production. There are certainly diseases of the corn that can be prevented when some genetic modification has to be implemented. This is just one of the good promises of advancing food production through innovation with science and technology. In short, the need to come up with this or undergo this level of process is highly associated with the rising demand for food because of the increase and demand of the world as its population continues to grow in number year after year. The world’s population in 2008 is different from 2010’s or 25 years from the past. There is certainly corresponding increase in number of the world’s population and this is a great contributing factor why shortage of food has become eminent. There are more people to be fed. This contributes to social, political and economic concerns of a nation. In general, this specific event calls for social, economic and political concerns as well. The issue of distribution Some says that food crisis is caused by significantly simple political and economical issue more than anything else. There are some countries that are said to be not so willing to distribute to the world what they essentially have with them. This primarily involves the issue of food distribution. There is reputed issue about food distribution today and from the past. This makes food crisis not just a matter of availability of food but of distribution. Some countries eventually are not that willing to share what they have especially the raw materials in food production. China for instance is always on the hot seat of not adhering to concerns and issues about world trade in general. Specifically, this primarily includes the issue of food distribution. For instance, the United States is always looking forward to keep track of China’s export and import activities. The latter is found to have some inconsistencies which would further prove the problem in line with distribution. This eventually has become one of the major concerns of the United States when it comes to the prevailing global crisis and economic downturn (Lley and Lewis, 2011; Hubbard and Onumah, 2001). China is not only the other country with problem when it comes to distribution, but there is other more. Some other countries are increasing their import activities but are trying to minimize their capacity for export. In line with this, the global trade industry is concerned with the ongoing activities particularly in the trade policies between nations. There is indeed a certain level of political and economic concerns in here that prevail. It cannot be denied that food crisis is politically-influenced event of our time. This issue has to be seriously considered as politically controlled due to the fact that there is a certain trend of every nation trying to secure what they essentially have for their economic advantage. Thus, it can be observed that it might be that there is essentially no food shortage but the entire issue would boil down to lack of healthy distribution. As a result, more developing countries are eventually experiencing malnutrition problems. In the case of Africa, many people starve to death. Children are experiencing malnutrition due to lack of access to good diet. Malnutrition can be an indicator of lack of food intake or right nutrition. In the case of developing or impoverish countries, the lack of food is eventually the leading cause of malnutrition. This specifically is the reason Higher prices Krugman is right when he tries to argue that the increase of demand for food resulted to higher prices. This can only be true if the demand exceeded than the supply needed. In short, the demand is able to influence the necessary supply needed and once it is not achieved, price takes its role in the process. This is true in the case of basic commodities such as fuel. Furthermore, this is very true in the case of food. However, processed foods for instance can reach a high unit price due to issue of production cost. There are eventually incurred costs when it comes to food production. Unfortunately, it has become a trend that the increase in the price of petroleum products has significant impact on the actual produced goods and other economic activities (Basher and Sadorsky, 2006; Hirsch, 2008). This resulted further to distribution of higher prices of goods and food stuffs. This in return minimizes the potential of some countries especially the impoverish ones to afford the actual good they would need. Thus, this makes it clearer that economic activities are important factors why there has an ongoing issue about food crisis. The problem may be traced back to how each nation has given the opportunity to obtain the food products they need. In reality, the impoverish countries cannot exactly afford to buy sufficient food products due to spiraling prices for food. The issue is not about having shortage in food but due to some other economic-related activities that trigger price increase for food such as the production of petroleum products. Oil is said to be the lifeblood of modern economy (Hilali, 2005). Thus, it only implies that it eventually has significant impact on other economic activities. Conclusion It is clear that the shortage of food is not a problem that can directly be attributed to changing weather condition. It is a problem that can be evident due to population increase, issue of distribution and prevailing high prices for other basic commodities such as oil. The world market is essentially faced with all of these issues in particular. References Basher, S. A., and Sadorsky, P. (2006) ‘Oil price risk and emerging stock markets.’ Global Finance Journal, Vol. 17 (2): 224-251. Grigg, D. (1980) Population growth and agrarian change: an historical perspective. Melbourne: CUP Archive. Hilali, A. Z. (2005) US-Pakistan relationship: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. Hirsch, R. L. (2008) ‘Mitigation of maximum world oil production: Shortage scenarios.’ Energy Policy, Vol. 36 (2): 881-889. Hubbard, M., and Onumah, G. (2001) ‘Improving urban food supply and distribution in developing countries: the role of city authorities.’ Habitat International, Vol. 25 (3): 431-446. Lley, R. A. and Lewis, M. K. (2011) ‘Has the global financial crisis produced a New World Order?’ Accounting Forum. Read More