Introduction
Causes of food shortage
There are three factors that lead to food shortage; they include environmental, economic and social factors. Other factors causing food shortage are overpopulation and poor government policies that lead many countries in scarcity of food. Food distribution to the masses is determined by the socio-political factors. The production and growth of crops in a given area is determined by the environmental factors. While on the other hand, economic factor affects the buying and production capacity.
Social factors causing food shortage include increase rate of the population which is higher than food production. High rate of population has led to clearing of agricultural lands hence affecting the agriculture production. Deforestation leads to desertification which later is accompanied by prolongs draught leading to food shortage. Population has led to overgrazing and deforestation thus resulting to soil erosion which in turn reduces the size and soil fertility.
The environmental factors are tampered with by human activities. Industrialization has led to climate change due combustion fuels that take place in industries hence causing global warming. The greenhouse effect is another threat to global warming which affects the ozone layer. The ozone layer protects the high frequency sunrays hitting direct onto the earth’s surface. As a result, there is increase in acid rains thus affecting the production of the crops.
The farmer’s engagement abilities in agriculture production are affected by the economic status. The farms inputs are not affordable by every farmer thus affecting food production. The government policies such as high taxation rates on the farms inputs leads to unaffordability of farmer inputs. These result to scarcity of food productions. Virginia Woolf said that “One cannot think well, love well, and sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
The solution
There is the need to have manageable population which doesn’t result in land clearing. There is need for the government to emphasis on industrial acts. This regulates carbon emission and pollution from the industries in order to reduce the resultant climate change. There the need to have substitution of energy in industrial and domestic uses this controls the climate change. These are the renewable energy such as wind, biofuel and solar.
Work cited
Clegg, Brian. The Global Warming Survival Kit: The Must-Have Guide to Overcoming Extreme Weather, Power Cuts, Food Shortages and Other Climate Change Disasters. London: Doubleday, 2007. Print. Read more
Kukathas, Uma. The Global Food Crisis. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Print. Read more
