+1 (845) 317-8489 [email protected]

Development and modernity have taken a toll on the world we live in. Accessible land that is available for adequate farming is only at ten percent of Earth (Hite and Seitz 111). Over production, a lack to adequate materials, climate issues, such as flood or drought, can all reduce the amount of available edible crops produced.
Despite the fact that every single person on the world needs to eat, edible crops are not cash crops. Many farmers opt to chase the money in cotton without regard to the human cost. In a capitalist society, of course, that is their right but when will enough be enough. Now, much-needed acres are being re-positioned as solar panel farms, which will even further limit the amount of crops available for purchase. Scarcity has a way of driving up prices, which could lead to cutting corners, where what you eat might kill you (malnutrition) as opposed to starvation.
Modernity and industrialization have made it possible for farmers to do more with their land, if they so choose (Hite and Seitz, 114). The American practice of paying farmers high prices has had a positive impact on food exportation in America, but as the amount of farmland continues giving way to development and solar panel farms, how much food with the United States be able to export in the future (Hite and Seitz, 114-115). By focusing on specialization, Brazil has been able to focus on the crops that it grows well, and, in doing so, was able to quadruple or even quintuple yields of grains and other commodities (Hite and Seitz, 116). China, on the other hand, struggles with its role as producer for its citizens. They were able to increase their farmland and increase production, perhaps because of robbing the world of Tibet, but by 2018, China had lost significant amounts of arable land to industrial pollution, construction, and growing practices (Hite and Seitz, 117-118).
Chinas decision to focus on rice, which is a filling food (albeit a labor intensive one), is a smart choice for a country with so many people. By allowing on the government to decide which crops to grow, through American subsidies, to specialization in Brazil, and focusing on rice in China (although I am sure the one-child policy has played a major role here as well.
In 2018, BBC reporter Smitha Mundasad, fingered extreme climate events for the increase in the number of people suffering from hunger (Mundasad, BBC). A September 20, 2022, report from Al Jazeera, lamented, It is abysmal that with all the technology in agriculture and harvesting techniques in agriculture and harvesting techniques today we are still talking about famine (Al Jazeera).
The report concluded, a deadly mix of poverty, social injustice, gender inequality, conflict, climate change, and economic shocks are to blame for such wide scale starvation (Al Jazeera). My original goal of becoming an educator could play a major role in the eradication of poverty, by educating to continue searching for a solution, and being educated typically makes it easier to spot when people try to swindle or take advantage of you. Right now, I am thinking of transitioning into Library Science, and with that I am unsure how to aid in the eradication of hunger rather than creating a research tool that will allow people to find answers for themselves that they will then use to better the world in that realm.