The current food crisis:
The current world food situation is demonstrating the increasing demand for food on a global scale. This food crisis is consequently causing an increasing gap between the rich and poor, developing world and the developed world. This gap includes the amount and quality of food that is being consumed, shown through North America and Europe’s increasing problems of obesity associated with obesity.
The European Union Common Agricultural policy enforced in the 1990s and early 2000s an order to reduce food production and reduce leftovers or waste. Once the Cold War was over, Europe had less need for large storage of food as war seemed less likely to happen.
At the same time there is an increasing population of those living in LEDCs. These people are poorer and hungrier and as a consequence suffer severe health problems such as malnutrition and starvation. The global food prices rose in 2008. One of the products which had a large increase was rice which resulted in riots in Africa and Asia. Even people in MEDC’s spent a large portion of their income on food and daily essentials.
As a result, people either cut down on quality of food, amount of food or spend more money trying to still afford the luxuries of high quality food. However the increase in food prices would have had an effect upon the rest of the global or local economies.
Green Revolution, a possible temporary solution?
The Green revolution took place in the 1960s the green revolution was the development of high yielding varieties (HYVs) of crops such as rice and wheat were selectively bred from thousands of varieties to increase yields. Techniques such as fertilising, irrigation and pesticides were also introduced to increase yields.
The green revolution helped bring a large increase in global food production. This encouraged farmers in the developing world to ‘leapfrog’