How to Feed a Growing Population Essay - 2780 Words

How to Provide Food for A Growing Population According to the United Nations Secretary-General, 17,000 kids are dying everyday due to hunger. However, the world today has more people who are overweight than people who are undernourished (Popkin, 2007). This shows the imbalance in our distribution of food and resources, as well as a system that promotes injustice in scarcity. Scarcity is an economic problem that arises because people have unlimited wants that never seems to end, but we have limited resources to begin with. Furthermore, the World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing â€Å"when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life† (WHO, 2011). The†¦show more content†¦Increasing food production through scientific methods will directly support the efforts of providing more food to more people. In brief, there is hope for feeding 9 billion people in the year of 2050 by increasing production potential through science and techn ology development. On the other hand, it is argued that production does not necessarily promise improvements in food security due to unfair policies that leave poor farmers at a disadvantage. The evidence that is presented shows that a large amount of money has been invested into improving technology, but it has done more to benefit people in the agricultural sector who were already relatively well off than to promote the growth of food output in the Third World (McMath, 1975). In other words, critics of further investment in research raised concerns about the actual impact of improved productivity on the livelihood of poor farmers and global food supply. These are legitimate criticisms, but they are not necessarily true. Research has shown that virtually all consumers in the world have benefited from productivity gains and lower food prices; being able to produce more food for their own consumption has also benefited many farm families (Evenson amp; Golli, 2003). Thus, productivity does make people b etter off and increases food availability at a global scale.Show MoreRelatedHow Do We Feed The Growing Human Population Without Depleting The Environment1491 Words   |  6 PagesAgriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world population is expected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050. That’s two billion extra mouths to feed. If we want to avoid mass malnutrition, farmers will have to increase food production by 70% by 2050 (Isaacson 2015). Unfortunately, agriculture is already putting a strain on our limited natural resources. 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