Reaction Paper #2- Factors that occurred to create world hunger and solutions that can change all aspects of human life.
World hunger is a prominent issue today that many people around the world try to find solutions for. World hunger is caused mainly by poverty, job instability, war/natural disasters, and climate change ('What Causes Hunger', 2019). The country Yemen is faced by all these factors leading them to have around 30 million people hungry because of the lack of resources around them and around 233,000 people dead because of malnutrition and starvation (Reinl, 2019).
When countries like this are struggling to find enough food to eat and sustain themselves, the United States government has ways to help by using food aid. Many people debate on whether food aid is a good thing or a bad thing, but they're definitely are advantages and disadvantages to it. Some advantages are that food aid allows the government to direct the extra food produced to those countries who need it instead of making food waste (Singer, 1998). It also allows the government to lend money to these countries so they can buy food and then, later on, have to pay us back with lower interest rates (Singer, 1998). Not only that, but it also allows for future alliances in case we need help in the future since we have helped that country once before when they were going through hard times (Singer, 1998). The disadvantages to food aid are also very projecting. Some arguments made about food aid include that it is a donor-driven system meaning that there are other motives in mind other than the sole purpose of helping others out. (Shah, 2007). Another argument is that it’s a government's political motive to get what the country wants by offering favors (Shah, 2007).
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However, there are different ways to help the situation of world hunger. For example, food aids while debatable are useful when a country like Yemen is going under extreme poverty and war situations. There are multiple types of food aid where governments give food for a lower cost, food is given in emergency situations, and food is given to better the situations of others (Shah, 2007). This is good because Yemen could get food fast to try and alleviate their problem but is also bad because they would have a debt that would further put them into poverty, or the US government may not even decide to help them because of their own political reasons.
Another way you could help fight this world hunger is by teaching these people in impoverished areas how to grow their own food so that they can continue to plant and eat even after the help is gone ('What we're doing to help end global hunger', 2018). Even though this method is very time-consuming and lots of money must be invested to send people to teach and provide resources, in the long run it would be more advantageous to those in poor countries since they have the knowledge.
The last way you could give your support and help would be to organize food donation drives in your own community to send to these places. Even though it wouldn’t be a long-term solution, you would still be helping many people without food for that moment ('7 Solutions for World Hunger', 2014). This method is also something that doesn’t take a lot of effort and everyone who wants to can partake in it.
Out of all these possible solutions, however, I would choose the second one where people would go out and teach others how to plant and grow their own crops. I think that this method is most efficient because it not only gives them lifelong skills that they could use and pass down to their future generations, but it also gives them a way to rebuild their community whether it be because of a natural disaster or war. By implementing these various strategies, hopefully, we will decrease the amount of starving people around the world.
References
- 7 Solutions for World Hunger. (2014, June 11). Retrieved from https://www.borgenmagazine.com/7-solutions-world-hunger/.
- Ose, J. (2019, October 15). The world's 10 hungriest countries. Retrieved from https://www.concernusa.org/story/worlds-ten-hungriest-countries/.
- Reinl, J. (2019, April 26). Yemen death toll to surpass 230,000 by end of 2019: UN report. Retrieved from https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/yemen-death-toll-surpass-230000-end-2019-un-report.
- Shah, A. (2007, December 3). Food Aid. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/article/748/food-aid.
- What Causes Hunger. (2019, August 30). Retrieved from https://www.bread.org/what-causes-hunger.
- What we're doing to help end global hunger. (2018, October 11). Retrieved from https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/what-were-doing-help-end-global-hunger.