Un Tackles Global Food Crisis: Analyzing Yemen's Food Insecurity - Essay Sample

Introduction

The United Nations seeks to address the global food crisis in developing countries. Therefore, the UN has considered hiring my input as a consultant to provide an analysis that explores the key issues that have a relationship with food security. This paper covers three main sections; that is, Section I: The Background, Section II: Technologies Reducing Hunger and Improving Food Security, and Section III: The Specific Factors Causing Food Insecurity. This research will focus on Yemen as the developing country facing food insecurity challenges. The effects of drought and conflicts among the neighbouring communities are the significant causes of food insecurity. Moreover, rapid population growth and poverty are also among the factors that cause food shortages among the people living in developing countries. Therefore, the introduction and the use of technology can help in reducing hunger and improving food security in Yemen.

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Background

Food insecurity refers to a situation whereby significant resources such as lack of money disrupt food supply to the population leading to reduced intake of food. This situation may be temporary or long term depending on the measures put into place to tackle the menace.

Role of Population Growth in Food Security

Population growth affects food security across the various regions of the world. There has been a proposal by the scholars that during this century, society will endure food insecurity as a significant threat ("Food Security and Population Growth in the 21st Century", 2019). Again, the world has experienced exponential population growth with a declining trend in the agricultural production of cereals. Findings from FAO indicate that food production per capita in the developing countries decline massively based on their relationship between agriculture and their population growth rates. Close to 36 million people in the world face food shortages while suffering from hunger.

Countries with the highest number of people have greater chances of facing food security challenges. Based on the assessment, Yemen has 20.2 million people who face threatening food shortages. The greatest challenge that these numbers cause to the food production is that they compete for the available land and water resources leading to pressure limiting the ability to support life. For any sustainable future, agricultural production is very critical since it influences food production and availability to the people. Moreover, the growing number of people leads to the indulgence into other activities leading to degradation of the land for agriculture. Hence, it is necessary to integrate population programs into other developments linking them to available resources of production.

Technologies That Reduce Hunger and Improve Food Security

There are several forms of technology that helps in the reduction of hunger and also improving food security. These methods include the use of E-cards, The Share the Meal App, Plumpy' Sup, and The SAFE Stoves. In the affected countries like Yemen, the refugees can use their E-cards to shop for the food items in the local markets. The cards have designs that enable the people to use the funds in purchasing other foods such as vegetables and fruits as opposed to the common staple food substances such as corns and rice (von Braun, 2018).

Again, the invention of the Share the App Meal has enhanced the connection between the individuals in fighting global hunger. Individuals can use the smartphone application to donate relief food to the vulnerable segment of society. Plumpy' Sup is a type of innovation in the form Ready-to-Use Food helping in the treatment and moderation of malnutrition among the children below the age of five years. Digitization has also helped in the creation of an online platform that allows the affected population against hunger. They receive updates via texts and calls informing them of the best agricultural practices about planning for their operations.

The productivity and growth of agriculture much depend on technology and innovation. Some of the causes of food insecurity, such as rapid population growth can be addressed directly by the use of technological measures. The land that has undergone degradation by human activities faces improvement by enhancing its fertility through soil integration management. The agricultural researchers further use their innovative measures by focusing on biophysical methods.

Specific Factors in Yemen

Yemen is a country that faces continuous conflicts arising from the government and nongovernment forces ("Quick facts: What you need to know about the crisis in Yemen", 2019). Due to the presence of wars in Yemen, the majority of the population has been displaced, making them vulnerable over the years. Moreover, the conflicts have also led to constraints in the delivery of necessary resources such as food since the people fled into rural areas without access to services. Majority of the people forcefully exited their homeland leading to lack of essential commodities to survive. Moreover, the ongoing wars in Yemen led to the closing of the seaport leading to the delay in delivering goods to the people. Therefore, this action makes food prices too high for the Yemenis to purchase.

Further impacts of war in Yemen has also affected the economy in terms of food production since many public sectors fail to pay salaries to the employees. Yemen has the majority of its people employed in the civil service; hence, this economic impact leaves them without income, thus failing to purchase food.

Moreover, the working group also faced challenges of food acquisition to feed their families. This inability to feed the families by these groups is since the Yemen currency has weakened while the continuous Yemen violence has also shortened the food supply. Hodeida is the entry point to Yemen for the word supplies. However, this area faces intense fighting posing a severe threat to the country's food delivery. Again, a commercial shipment of the essential food substances takes place at Hodeida port, which the violence affects.

Conclusion

Going into the future, the United Nations should consider implementing measures that will help in the mitigation of food insecurity in developing countries. Some of these measures include reforming agricultural food policies, export restriction, introduction and implementation of international governance. The foreign trade policies such as those used by European countries should regulate their policies in ensuring that they don't undermine the rights of the developing countries. Hence, the UN should ensure the implementation of Free Trade Agreements enabling countries like Yemen to use tariffs and other favourable policies protecting their food production ("Averting tomorrow's global food crisis | International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development", 2019). Imposing export restrictions on crucial food commodities reduce the possible risks of hikes in food prices. Hence, the United Nations should consider implementing effective policies that reduce food crisis challenges.

References

Averting tomorrow's global food crisis | International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development. (2019). Retrieved 18 August 2019, from http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/trade-negotiations-insights/news/averting-tomorrows-global-food-crisis

Food Security and Population Growth in the 21st Century. (2019). Retrieved 18 August 2019, from https://www.e-ir.info/2011/07/18/food-security-and-population-growth-in-the-21st-century/

Peter Timmer. May/June 2015. Food Security and Scarcity: Why Ending Hunger Is So Hard. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/food-security-and-scarcity-why-ending-hunger-so-hard

Quick facts: What you need to know about the crisis in Yemen. (2019). Retrieved 18 August 2019, from https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/yemen/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-crisis-yemen

The United Nations Population Division. 2017. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-population-prospects-the-2017-revision.html

von Braun, J. (2018). Innovations to Overcome the Increasingly Complex Problems of Hunger. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3161919

Will Martin. November 5, 2010. Food Security and Poverty: A Precarious Balance. Let's Talk Development blog by The World Bank. http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/food-security-and-poverty-a-precarious-balance