Famine

Subject  > Area & Country Studies Essays

Countries have typically linked their national security closely with advanced weapon systems and a large military budget. The key to national security and survival, however, is a reliable food supply. A food supply must be maintained despite such factors as land conversion, population growth and economic inequalities. Reliable food supplies in developing countries are in jeopardy due to deliberate crop destruction and inefficient food distribution; resulting in widespread chronic hunger. Each year millions of acres of the world's farmland are lost to the spread of cities and suburbs, highway and airport construction and shopping centers. In Canada, most of the land taken over by urban sprawl came from the best cropland. Even in the Third World ...

... discouraging it. The attention to equity, to agriculture and to population control has reduced the threat of famine. In India, the introduction of high yield crop varieties has greatly increased food production though malnutrition still remains prevalent. In the early 1990's, the world was producing more than adequate food for the billions of people on the planet and it was said to be capable of growing enough to feed the population for the first part of the 21st century. To eliminate famine and reduce malnutrition, attention would need to be given not only to food production, but also to food distribution and consumption. Many countries were establishing nutrition surveillance systems designed to

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