Food Shortage In The World

What are the reasons behind the food shortage in the world today?

The world produces enough to feed the entire global population of 7 billion people. And yet, one person in eight on the planet goes to bed hungry each night. In some countries, one child in three is underweight.There are many reasons for the presence of hunger in the world and they are often interconnected.People living in poverty cannot afford nutritious food for themselves and their families. This makes them weaker and less able to earn the money that would help them escape poverty and hunger. This is not just a day-to-day problem: when children are chronically malnourished, or ‘stunted, ' it can affect their future income, depreciating them to a life of poverty and hunger

This food wastage represents a missed opportunity to improve global food security in a world where one in 8 is hungry.

Producing this food also uses up precious natural resources that we need to feed the planet. Each year, food that is produced but not eaten guzzles up a volume of water equivalent to the annual flow of Russia 's Volga River. Producing this food also adds 3.3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, with consequences for the climate and, ultimately, for food production.

About 800 million people in the world suffer from hunger. The problem is mainly in Africa but it also has an impact on a number of Asian and Latin American countries. In early 2006 the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that 27 sub-Saharan countries could need food assistance. Food shortages can occur because of both natural and human problems. The natural problems that can lead to food shortages include:

Soil exhaustion

Drought

Floods

Tropical cyclones

The long civil war and drought have been the main reasons for the famine in the Sudan, but there are many associates factors as well. The civil war which has lasted for over 20 years, is between the govt. in Khartoum and rebel forces in the western region of Darfur and in the south. A Christian Aid document in 2004 described the Sudan as ‘a country still gripped by a civil war that has been fuelled, prolonged and part-financed by oil’. One of the biggest issue between the 2 sides in the civil war is the sharing of the oil wealth between the government-controlled north and the south of the country where most of the oil is found. The United Nation estimated that up to 2 million people have been displaced by the civil war and more than 70,00 people have died of hunger and associated diseases. at times, the UN World Food Programme has stopped deliveries of vital food supplies because situation has been considered too dangerous for the drivers and aid