Global Food Crisis Essay

Food shortage is fast taking global catastrophic proportions. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warns the world that it could trigger off crisis upon crisis if the problem is not acted upon and solved before it is too late. The food crisis did not just happen overnight. Global Warming has had a hand in it. Heavy rains and flooding in the rice fields of Asia greatly affected rice production, enough to cause a shortage. With the decrease in supply and an increase in demand for it, prices rose. Prices of other commodities as well as oil, fertilizer and energy required for food production were similarly affected. Gradual switch of energy sources from fossil fuels to bio fuels even with its concern for the environment is an adverse threat to food production. Faced with a food crisis should be a wake up call for everyone. For the fortunate few with food on their table, they must think of the hungry in the other parts of the world. They must not panic-buy knowing that others may go without a morsel of their horde. Artificial shortages give the sellers reason to jack up prices. The destructive effects of global warming may have been caused by our neglect and is now beyond our control. But an economic crisis that may be one of the domino effects of the food crisis may be avoided by our own doing. Hunger has always been in our midst, maybe not anywhere near the more affluent First World but in the African continent. Africa has wide, but dry barren lands that have not been used much for agriculture. Why suffer the pangs of hunger when the solution is right before us waiting to be tapped? We could develop the soil for agriculture. Science and Technology is a continuous discipline that stops at nothing in search of cures, solutions, means and methods to problems that face us everyday. Fund sourcing must be a global effort. We must all do our share to help feed the world and solve the current crisis. There is nothing we can not do for the world if we have the concern, the will and the action plan. Works Cited Engeler, Eliane. UN to set up Task Force to tackle Global Food Crisis. Bern, Switzerland; The Associated Press, 2008.