The Plan to Eradicate Hunger in the Congo - Research Paper Example

Every human being is dependent upon certain basic necessities; the most basic of them all is food, shelter and clothing. Food is extremely important for any human being to survive, poverty and hunger still exists in the world and it’s a real shame for all those people who are doing very little about this. People in a comfortable position must contribute extensively to eradicate Poverty only then will the world become a better place to live in. This paper will throw light upon the food crisis in Congo, a comprehensive understanding of what the exact situation is like in Congo will be provided in this paper. “In the midst of the election process, the people in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) are in danger. Why? Because of the fighting between the army and the militia groups. The United Nations World Food Programme sounds the alarm.” (Food Crisis in Congo) There is very wrong perception of the rich people that there is no food shortage in the world and this is because they have all the luxuries in the world, but they have just noticed the sharp increase in food price. However, food is becoming a scarce resource and this increase in prices is a result of food crisis which is one of the most important global issues. According to The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (OXFAM), there are 967 billion people who do not have enough amount of food to eat (2008). It is found that the global food crisis exists because of several causes. Oil crisis is one of the main factors which have a direct impact on the food crisis, the prices of food transportation and agricultural fertilizers have increased because of the oil crisis and the same directly affects the food crisis. Population growth is another cause especially in middle class countries such as India the same has led to an increase in the demand of meat that apply more grain in order to be produced than other commodities. Climate change has also affected food production where drought covered several parts of the world such as south Asia. Trade is another cause of food crisis because imported goods might be cheaper than goods produced in the country, so poor farmers are forced to reduce the price of their products. Finally, Biofuel production is considered as one of the biggest causes of food crisis since the price of food has increased at the same time as biofuel production has increased. The food crisis not only affects the developing countries but it has also started taking a toll on the developed countries. This essay considers the responses to food crisis in Congo which is a developing country in South Africa. To understand this issue, we fist need to explain the reasons for food crisis in Congo. Then, we will discuss and evaluate the current responses to this problem there. Finally, other appropriate responses to solve the food crisis in Congo will be presented. As a poor developing country in Africa, Congo has been suffering from economical Decline since its independence from the British in the year 1980, and this is exactly the main factor for food crisis. Weak economical situation in Congo brings about less than 30 per cent of employment as a result of which, hunger expands in the country and more people live in extreme poverty (IRIN, 2008). 5.5 billion dollars as dept on the Congo government to be paid to other countries, this goes to show how fragile the Congo government is. According to the same source, irregular and delays in dept payment led some countries to stop trade with the Congo government. Many areas in Congo receive less rain than before which results in less food production (Care, n.d). For instance, maize, which is the stable food in Congo, harvests declined by one third from the production ten years ago (IRIN 2, 2008). Even in areas where it rains regularly, many people are still hungry because farmers do not have enough amounts of seed and fertilizer to cover the demand (Famine Early Warning System Network, 2008). Now it is clear that economical decline, unemployment, drought, shortage of seed and fertilizer are the main reasons for the food crisis in Congo. As a result of the food shortage, prices are calculated to increase by around tenfold every year in Congo (IRIN2, 2008). The following section will examine the current response to food crisis in Congo and how successful has it been in dealing with the same. The most eye catching response to deal with the food crisis has been the food aid, the food aid has been provided to many other countries too like Haiti, which suffer from the same problem. The most commonly used type of relief is food aid, which is nothing but the food given directly to the people who suffer from hunger. From estimated million people were in need for food aid in 2001 (BBC), the number has grown to be about 5 million as expected by the United Nations in 2009 (The Washington Post Company, 2008). Aid of 20 million dollars is set by the Congo government to cope with food shortages (The Zimbabwe Times, 2008). Many other organisations provide Congo with high amounts of food continuously such as The United Nations World Food Programme. Other types of food aid are also made available such as programme food aid which is food provided in markets to be sold at cheaper price for poor people who have ration cards from the government. Being illustrated food aid response to food crisis in Zimbabwe, the next section will evaluate the response of the same. This type of short term response is important for big part of the Congo population in order to stay alive. An important point that should be noticed is that the amount of food provided by food aid organizations does not always cover all people in need for food assistance in Congo. In fact, food aid could have a negative impact on farmers because the prices of their products should be less to be sold in order to cope with the high amounts of food aid provided. In addition, some farmers might find it unprofitable and reduce their production as a result. Aid in the form of seeds and fertilizers is being delivered to Congo from different organizations. For instance, 23,000 households are being provided with fertilizers and seed by OXFAM (2008). In addition, Care Organization is handing out 100,000 formers with seed and fertilizers to cover the food shortage. It is clear that aid in the form of fertilizers and seed is a long term solution because with this kind of response farmers produce more food and reduce the amount of imported food as a result. Moreover, by improving the agricultural part, food shortage will decrease and the country could export food instead of importing. However, the amount of seeds and fertilizers provided to farmers is very low comparing with the land available for planting and the amount required to cover the Congo population. According to Famine Early Warning System (FEWS), there are just around one fifth of maize seeds from the total requirement needed in order to provide people with maize (2008). So it is important to concentrate the aid in the form of agricultural inputs to Congo in order to achieve better production seasons in the future. This section examined aid in the form of seed and fertilizers in Congo as a long term solution to food crisis, another long term response to Food shortage will be examined in the next section. Another current controversial response is planting crops which are genetically modified. This suggestion had been refused for a long time in Congo by both the government and the citizens. Even food aid from the United States that contain small amount of genetically modified food was refused by the government. However, as famine gets deeper in Congo, GM crops plantation started in few years ago as reported by Chingarande (2006, N.P). Genetic modified (GM) food is considered to be a long term response to food crisis in Congo. Many advantages are provided by GM food. The first advantage is better nutrition which is needed in Congo where many people suffer from malnutrition. Another advantage is drought tolerance which is a solution to climate change; this is also provided by GM crops. Herbicide and diseases resistance are anther two advantages that GM food provides to increase the food production. However, because there are some doubts about GM crops security, many people avoid planting them or even eating food from GM crops. Lack of knowledge about the proper process of planting GM food might negatively affect the food production in Congo as what happened in Mexico where their maize plants are affected by white skin disease and they no longer know which crops are from the native maize (Green TV, 2012). The final current response is climate prediction which helps farmers to know the best time to Cultivate. Congo Meteorological Services and the Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum are two sources that farmers in Congo could get the forecast from (FEWS, 2012). Prediction of rainy period from November until the mid of December followed by lower amount of rain between January and March has been forecasted as reported by the same source. After explaining how climate prediction response has been applied in Congo, an evaluation of it will be provided in the next part. Climate prediction could improve food production in Congo, but as mentioned before many farmers do not have enough agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizers to get benefit from climate broadcasting and produce higher amounts of food during raining seasons. When improving aid in the form of agricultural inputs, climate prediction response will be much successful, and as a result of which the food shortage in Congo would be lower. One alternative response for food crisis which is manly resulted from economical decline is producing biofuel, which is fuel such as methane produced from renewable resources, from GM crops. This is because many people do not trust GM food security and think that it is harmful, it should be planted in order to produce biofuel. In fact, biofuel production would improve the economical situation in Congo; to do the same they are establishing one of the biggest biodiesel plants (FEWS). It is found that that this biodiesel plant is very slowly constructed. So a better solution is to privatize it so that it may provide high amounts of GM seeds and fertilizers in order to produce biodiesel crops. If the same is followed and stuck to, the food shortage in Congo will not increase because they already have big areas that are not being used to produce food as a result of seeds and fertilizers shortage. Biofuel production would sharply reduce the amount of imported oil in Congo which means better economy, which is a major cause for food crisis in Congo, more employment, and less people will suffer from food shortage. Another Alternative response for food crisis in Congo is to sell some land areas which are not being used as a result of seeds shortage to companies which could provide large amount of seeds to sell cheaper products for citizens and export if there is an extra food. If this suggestion is put into action then both the companies as well as the people will benefit from the same. This will also provide a chance to the people to get employed and hence the unemployment problem in the country will also be under control, this will ultimately solve the problem of food crisis in Congo. Conclusion Food crisis in Congo has claimed many a life, the situation is getting worse with each passing day. It is high time to take suitable measures, some such measures include privatizing. Privatizing will help the country greatly; it will decrease the unemployment in the country which in turn will help the country recover from the present food crisis. Another way to deal with this problem is to produce bio fuel in the unused land, this will help the country greatly but the biggest problem in Congo is the ignorance of the people, many people in the country believe that producing bio fuel will increase the food shortage in the country but this is not the reality. Unless the people in the country get to know the reality their problem will never be solved. The sooner the people acknowledge the truth, the faster their problem will be solved. References Chingarande, S. D. 2006. "Gender analysis and advocacy", Workshop paper presented on the 22nd of August on the Political Economy of Urban Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa (PEPUARP) at the University of Zimbabwe Care. In Defending Dignity. Retrieved on 4 December 2012 from: FEWS. In From the American People. Retrieved 4 December 2012 Food Crisis in Congo. In Destination Sante. Retrieved on 4 December 2012 from: Green TV. Retrieved on 4 December 2012 IRIN. In Humanitarian News. Retrieved on 4 December 2012 from: The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. In OXFAM. Retrieved on 4 December 2012 from: Washington Post Company. Retrieved on 4 December 2012. Read More