By Jordan T.
What is Food Insecurity?
Have you ever felt like you thought you were starving? Well, some people feel starvation every day. This is because of food insecurity. Food insecurity is a big problem around the world. Food insecurity is even a big problem in the United States of America. Food insecurity happens when a certain place or population does not have healthy food or the ability to get to a store or market in a timely manner. However, food insecurity isn’t just about the location of stores and markets.
It also comes about as a result of climate change, such as heat and increased temperatures, water and contamination, and land deforestation and pests. They all play a part in food insecurity. Climate change is wrecking our global food supply and negatively affecting numerous populations.
Heat
Food insecurity is impacted by climate change in many ways. The first way climate change harms our food supply is through heat. According to NASA.org, scientists have stated that the planet is heating up. This is due to extra greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses are created by the burning of fossil fuels for things like transportation and power plants. When the planet heats up, it sucks up water, or in other words, it makes the water in our soil disappear, causing it to be dry. As a result, when soil is not fertile, plants are not able to grow. When we produce fewer plants because we do not have the proper soil to grow them in, we harm our food supply.
Water
Water is very important when it comes to growing plants. Sometimes contaminated water is sometimes used to water our plants. Not only does this not help plant life but it also does not help those who consume plant life. Contaminated water can kill the plants because of toxins. This toxic water is created largely by power plants, the burning of fossil fuels, and fracking.
Of course, there are other things that affect our water, but bad water can do more than just kill plants; it can poison the soil. When and if the soil gets poisoned with toxins, farmers will not be able to grow any more plants. Poisoned water leads to poisoned land, and poisoned land leads to poisoned plant life. A survey published by the Environmental Protection Agency’s PA’s National Water Quality Inventory found “almost 40 percent of U.S. rivers and 45 percent of lakes are polluted.”
Land
There is not a lot of land that is used for agriculture. In 2012, only 26% of the earth’s land was used for livestock. Now, 80% of the land is used for livestock. There was a 54% increase. Presently, only 38% of the earth’s land is used for farming. I can't help but wonder how we get more land. The short answer is that we cut down trees. According to Earthobsevations.nasa.gov in 2015
“They [trees] cover about 30 percent of Earth's land surface, while accounting for 50 percent of plant productivity. As much as 45 percent of the carbon stored on land is tied up in forests. Forests cover 30 percent of the Earth's land.” Time.com reported that in 2012, 15 billion trees were cut down every year. That was 10 years ago! Now, just think, if this article was posted in 2012 and the NASA article was posted in 2015 and there are approximately 400 billion trees in the world and we cut down 15 billion trees every year! How many do we have left? Trees are being cleared and deforestation is happening, just so you can have your McDonalds burger or KFC chicken.
Closing
Food insecurity isn’t just about not being able to get food. It’s about our food supply and how we maintain it. What I want you to know is that we can help take care of our food supply and the earth. How? We can stop throwing trash and toxic waste into our oceans, rivers, and lakes. We can turn off our cars when we are not driving in them and decrease our carbon footprint, or we can try to buy green cars (electric cars) that won’t poison our environment. We can stop clearing land for livestock and killing our rainforests and our deciduous forests. We can start using the planet’s land for planting more trees and consumables. We can make a difference by making changes in our homes and communities. Start today.
Bibliography
Books:
Hamalainen, Karina. Extreme Weather and Rising Seas. New York: Children's Press, 2020.
Roberts, Kathryn. Food Insecurity. San Diego: Greenhaven Publishing. 2021.
Sharif-Draper, Maryam. Climate Change. New York:
DK Publishing. 2020.
Web Sources:
www.usda.gov
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
www.americanprogress.org
Theecologist.org
Earthobsevations.nasa.gov
Forbes5.pitt.edu
Youtube.com
Time.com
Cnn.com
Trees Atlanta
Roots Down
University of Georgia Extension
Water for Life
United Nations (Zero Hunger Challenge)
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