I Believe Blog #2

"Zambia: Fertile but hungry." I think is an interesting title, because usually when we think about fertile we think about plenty of food to feed lot of people, but with when we see the title we will think differently. That what happened in Zambia, when the farmers lost their subsided from the government. Other problem that the farmers had was, they produced maize, cabbages, tomatoes and other vegetables but because lacked of infrastructure they could not sell their corps into the markets.

People who lived in poverty and hunger were the most affected by this situation. Many people could not work because they were too weak. As a result, in the end of season there was no farming activity and there is widespread hunger. In Zambia "Life expectancy in Zambia has fallen from 50 to 32." There was a major issue that Zambia was facing as a effect of hunger that happened in Zambia.

I believe this issue can be solve if, the government and international organizations could work together. They could create programs to develop Zambia agriculture, since Zambia is depended to agriculture. Not only providing free seeds, but access to the markets, education in agriculture and well distributed to other areas are important, in order to overcome the farmers' issues and the food shortage.

Source: BBC News, "Zambia: Fertile but hungry", Peter Biles. Monday, 6 February 2006. Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4678592.stm

I Believe Blog #1

Food crisis that happen is a global issue and we need to solve it immediately. The rise of fuel price and high demands of food are the major factors of food shortages. The food shortages create social problems like, suicide because cannot stand of hunger and poverty, drooping out from school to help their parents, and become malnutrition. The dilemma that people facing between children drooping out from schools or become malnutrition family, and it becomes a trend.

Sustainable land is maybe one of the alternatives, with gardens, a large greenhouse, and chickens, it produces lot of extra food. Other alternatives comes from environmentalists, that have encouraged to buy food from local farmer. To help minimize the pollution, that produced during the distribution from trucks, airplanes, ships, etc.

I think governments across countries should have the right solutions as soon as possible, in order to stop this food crisis that happening right now. Increasing the production of crops and stabilize the world economy must be done by the governments before it becomes worst. People, especially low-middle classes should afford to buy food with government helps, during this food crisis.

Source: One World. "Food Prices Changing lives"Jeffry Allen and Brittany Schell.October 28, 2008
November 21, 2008. http://us.oneworld.net/article/358264-food-prices-changing-lives

Food Crisis

1) What factors listed in the two articles are cited as the cause of the "food crisis"?
Over past 50 years, we have seen the exploiting the land for the expansion of agriculture such as green revolution, this had lead to, species disappearance rapidly, and huge loss in genetic variety. In other hand low rise in farm productivity, poor food storage facilities, unsustainable agricultural policies and technologies, inequitable trade rules, climate change and inflation also had influence to the factors of the food crisis.

2) Who is hurt the most from this crisis?
First of all, ecosystem is damaged because of the expansion of farming and still need to provide the food for people. But however, the farmers are who hurt the most because the crisis. The debt is one of impact of the crisis, the farmers could not pay the debt because unremunerative prices for them, they still need to pay to stay alive, and tax. “At least 10,000 farmers have committed suicide each year over the last decade because of their inability of repay loans taken at usurious rates of interest from local moneylenders.”

3) What are governments doing to address this crisis? Support with links to other web sites for evidence. What else do you think governments should do?

The government gave a 15billion USD waiver of farmer loans.

“Unless the loan waiver is followed up with other measures to ensure the farmer gets remunerative prices, the measure is unlikely to help much”(http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/mar/12debate.htm)

I think government needs to concentrate to how increasing food production without exploiting the land. Suitable lands, good seeds and remunerative prices for the farmers, I think these can help to alleviate the food crisis. When the food production is high, farmers get more money and food will easily get everywhere.