In The News

1. In The News

2. Learning Objective • To research, discuss and debate topical issues, problems and events. • To know that resources can be allocated in different ways and that these economic choices affect individuals, communities and the sustainability of thr environment.

3. The Food Shortage How serious is it?

4. Why is there a Shortage of Food? • The growing global population. • Poor harvests, partly due to climate change. • Rising oil prices have led countries to grow corn to make biofuels for motoring, instead of for food. • Soil erosion. • Changing diets in countries such as India and China.

5. The Growing Population In 2000 the number of people on Earth was 6.1bn. By 2050 the population is expected to reach 9bn. To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been produced during all the past 10,000 years. Click for More

6. Poor Harvests Drought in Australia has nearly wiped out that country's rice production, which normally feeds 20 million people worldwide. Corn and oil production has fallen in south eastern and eastern Europe because of droughts. Soya and palm oils are important as cooking oils in Asia. But flooding in Malaysia and a drought in Indonesia have massively reduced supplies. Last year flooding in North Korea almost completely wiped out their crops. Click for More

7. What Can Be Done? Forty years ago, Brazil’s grasslands were considered to be wasteland, but technology has changed that. The success that Brazil has achieved in food production can be replicated in Africa. More funds for: • Research into developing disease resistant plants. • The production of high-yield seeds. • The development of cheaper fertilisers. • The development of drought resistant plants. Click for More

8. Biofuels Robert Zoellick, the World Bank President said ‘While many worry about filling their tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs. And it's getting more and more difficult every day.’ Growing crops for biofuel is worsening world food shortages and threatening to make billions go hungry. Many countries have plans to increase production of biofuels over the next ten years, but growing crops for biofuel is reducing food production just when it needs to be increased. Filling a 4x4 fuel tank once with ethanol uses enough corn to feed a human for a year. Click for More

9. What Can Be Done? • Improve public transport, to reduce the number of motorists on the roads. • More urgent research into sustainable energy sources: Wind Waves Solar Hydrogen Powered Cars. This is a computer graphic of the British Steam Car. The grandson of speed enthusiast Sir Malcolm Campbell is hoping to set his own land speed record in a car powered by steam. Click for More

10. Soil Erosion In many countries poor farming practices and the destruction of forests are destroying the soil, leaving vast areas unsuitable for farming. An area of fertile soil the size of Ukraine is lost every year. Soil erosion is often caused by flooding. Much good soil is also blown away by wind. Over planting takes too many nutrients out of the soil. Click for More

11. What Can Be Done? • Improve water storage and irrigation • Reduce water wastage • Build more desalination plants near coasts Farmers can increase the amount of food they grow without having to clear more land by: • rotating their crops. • sowing at the right time of year • controlling the growth of weeds. Click for More

12. Changing Diets As people get richer in China and the Far East, they have started to like the kind of food we eat (e.g. Macdonalds!). They are importing more and more meat, especially beef. The amount of meat eaten by people from all the developing countries has doubled since 1980. It takes 8 kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef. Meat is a very inefficient way of using land to produce food. Click for More

13. What Can Be Done? • Eat a greater proportion of vegetables • Encourage vegetarian diets, which are healthier anyway.

14. Who is Suffering? • When anything becomes scarce, it becomes more expensive. • Fuel oil has also become a lot more expensive in recent months. The cost of transportation is raising the price of food even further. • In less than a year, the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, and rice by 74 per cent. Fifteen percent of the world’s population lives on just one dollar a day. With food costs rising,about one billion of the world’s poorest people will have to give up health care and education in order to avoid starvation. Click for More

15. What Can Be Done? Governments need to create a safety net of food stocks that can be distributed to the poor at affordable prices. The richest people in the world use 16 times as much food as the poorest people. We can make sure that we don’t buy more than we need, and avoid wastage.

16. Theft, protests and riots! • In Vietnam the new crime of rice rustling (raiders strip fields of their crops at night) has led to the banning of all harvesting machines from roads after sunset. • In Yemen, children marched to draw attention to their hunger. • In Mexico, the rising cost of wheat led to ‘tortilla riots’ in the streets in 2007. • In Britain, pig farmers have protested outside Downing Street about the rising cost of animal feed.

17. ….and now for the Good News • Farmers in Afghanistan are now cultivating wheat, instead of growing poppies for drugs, because they can make more money. • Growing more crops will help to reduce the rate of global warming. • Developing countries may get more money for the crops they grow. It is a chance to remove people from poverty.

18. Co-operation is the Key • No problem is insurmountable if governments work together. • Co-operation is the key – not blaming each other. Click for More

19. Glossary • Biofuel - gas or liquid fuel made from plants • Soil erosion – soil washed away by wind and/or water • Drought – a long period without rain • Resistant – tough, hardy • Replicated – repeated, copied • Sustainable – able to be maintained • Nutrients – chemicals needed for healthy growth • Inefficient – wasteful, unproductive • Insurmountable – impossible, insoluble.

21. Terracing in the Ganges valley