food crisis

Today everyone is aware of sudden surge in food prices which continues to cause serious financial problems for many people with tight-budget. For the last year prices on corn, rice and wheat more than doubled and the problem here is not only in price but also in actual storage. The worthiest thing about today’s global food crisis is that it’s exploding and can result in the first increase in poverty and hunger in several generations. In poor third world countries the situation is already critical and the wealthiest countries, in their turn, also feel the pangs. There are many causes of global food crisis but still the main are as follows:

  • climate change
  • poor harvests
  • diversion of cropland to biofuels
  • population upsurge
  • drastic increase in meat consumption
  • high fuel prices

Although it’s obvious that it’s high time to stop growing food to feed cars instead of people, different countries take different measures to prevent further food crisis expansion and everyone is focused on prices control and export barriers. And what about us? What should we focus on and do on our side to save the world from starvation. The answer is simple: we are to change our eating habits and keep to different diets which will help us to stay healthy and at the same time to reduce meat consumption. Here are the main reasons why this should be done:

1) It takes 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of meat, so obviously meat production is less efficient than growing grain.

2) The more meat we eat the more crops we need to grow to feed animals, thus the less land we can use to grow crops for humans.

3) Global food prices increase up to 57 per cent in a year and very soon lots of people won’t be able to afford even buying cereals and dairy.

Apparently, it’s naive to expect all people to switch to a various vegan diets, become vegetarians, eat only pulses, fruits and vegetables or even think of meat as a treat, however we have to think about our role in global food crisis and our actions which can help to stop its expansion and prevent the catastrophe.

Family food expenditures around the world in pictures

Image credit: Tiger eating his meat