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Food & Hunger

What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?

925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!




Food & Hunger >

World hunger

Samuele

The problem of food scarcity for many people has persisted for at least 50 years, if not longer. There are areas on Earth where people literally die of hunger and receive aid only from humanitarian organizations, which, of course, cannot solve this huge problem on their own. Additionally, in recent years, even in the wealthiest countries, there has been an increase in poverty, which, of course, leads to difficulties in accessing food.

To solve this problem, both internal and external, there should be a massive economic commitment from the wealthier countries. While they work to address the internal issue of poverty and food shortages, they seem to completely ignore those countries where people are dying of hunger. Only the wealthy part of the world could currently make a difference by providing real economic aids and educational support to help these countries make the most of their limited resources.

In some of these countries, it is also unfortunate to note that the political situation plays a role, with extremist governments refusing foreign aids.

gakiBOD

I totally agree with these statements and believe that these government officials should be doing something about the amount of food waste, and amount of hunger that is contributing to the overall human carbon footprint. According to a recent study done by CarbonBrief.org, it says that about ⅓ of the world’s carbon emissions come from food production through to consumption. Also, about half of one-third comes directly from food waste. It is absolutely crazy to me that so many people in the world are starving, while others throw away so much food. Also the ISCFC website under the food waste and hunger category, it says that about 1 in 7 people in the entire world are affected by malnutrition and do not have enough food or access to food. Many large countries such as the United States contribute a lot to food waste as it says, on average, the US wastes 60 million tons of food each year. That is simply not okay. In contrast, many countries in Africa are affected by starvation and malnutrition. People need to stop ignoring these facts and help out so that we can make a difference. If we stop wasting food altogether, others who truly need the food can have it, which would lessen the carbon footprint of food waste.

namabod

I agree with your statement, world hunger is a real problem and it is scary knowing that people don't acknowledge the plight. Food waste contributes to major problems like world hunger and carbon footprints contributing to Global warming. The ideal carbon footprint is 6000-16000 pounds of greenhouse gases per person per year, due to global warming this isn't a realistic number for us but with food waste the production of gases is the same as 32.6 million cars worth of harmful greenhouse gases. I feel like people should be more aware of this problem because one of the many steps that will lead us to try to end world hunger/food waste is to freeze our leftover food if we don't eat it completely. Once we learn how to save our leftovers and not discard them right away, we will not only be able to stop food waste but also take advantage of the precious resources that sometimes we take for granted and help stop emitting greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Bringing awareness to this topic is major because a large population with fewer resources are not able to get food which can lead them to hunger.

befuBOD

I agree that food scarcity is a growing issue that we need to combat. According to worldvision.org 45 million children are dangerously malnourished. This issue is especially prevalent in Asia and Africa. Wealthier countries should be focused on helping these less fortunate countries in providing food to people because together we can solve this issue. According to usda.org production, transportation, and handling of food contributes a significant amount to Carbon emissions. Living in a more fortunate country, we often waste food or take it for granted.

9718

I agree that food scarcity is expanding in places of the world and it is effecting a lot of people leaving them in jeopardy. For example in Sudan 20.3 million people are starving and it has doubled since last year. Along with that, since 2019, the number of people facing acute food insecurity has tripled from 5.8 million to almost 18 million. But some of the saddest reasons is how the International aid is arriving in Sudan but it's being blocked by the military from reaching areas where starvation is severe.

-Christian Sanchez BOD27

tecoBOD

I completely agree! World hunger is such a layered topic, especially since it seems there is not much we can do to stop it. I think people have this idea that big issues cannot be affected by one singular person, and while I totally agree with this, I also think that if everybody chooses to ignore this and instead work towards creating a better, more sustainable world, then we can reverse the effects of climate change. World hunger is a big issue because it is one that negatively impacts both people and the planet. According to the World Health Organization (or WHO), in 2021 alone, 828 million people faced world hunger. That's almost 10% of the world's population. To deal with this issue, many people think that we should produce more food because not enough food is being produced to feed everyone. This, however, is false. The World Counts stated that roughly 30% of the food that is produced is wasted. Thats 1.3 billion tons. In other words, if we redirected the food that was previously going to be wasted to hungry individuals, we would be able to feed everyone who is hungry around the world and still have some left over. In order to get to the root of this issue, we must change the way so many of us live. This means committing to purchasing only what you are sure will be consumed. Lowering the demand for food results in lower prices, which would allow for more accessible food globally. Additionally, grocery stores should be accessible to everyone, not just individuals who live in a certain area. By allowing access to healthy, budget-friendly, environmentally safe foods, people who previously relied on fast food industries will cut down on their carbon emissions both because they wouldn't have to drive as far to access clean food, but also because they would be purchasing organic foods rather than fast food, which is worse for the environment. This is extremely important because according to Our World in Data, around 25-30% of the world's carbon emissions come from the food industry. Has this number come up before? Yes, the % of food that is wasted. As food decays, it releases previously stored carbon, so by reducing the amount of food waste, we will actually reduce the carbon footprint of the food industry. In summation, it is imperative that we work towards directing unpurchased or (what would have been) wasted food to places in a state of insecurity to not only better the lives of those individuals, but also minimize the impact of the food industry's carbon footprint on global warming.

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