Account for the uneven distribution of food supplies in the more developed countries and the less developed countries. What can be done by the MDC to help overcome the problem of famine in LDC? Illustrate your answer with appropriate examples.
Today, despite the existence of sufficient food supplies, the goal of feeding everyone in the world cannot be achieved due to the uneven distribution of food supplies. Over 1 000 million people now live in starvation.
Account for the uneven distribution of food supplies in the more developed countries and the less developed countries.
What can be done by the MDC to help overcome the problem of famine in LDC? Illustrate your answer with appropriate examples.
Overall, the food produced should be sufficient to feed the global population, however in reality this cannot be achieved due to the uneven distribution of resources, thus food supplies. In many less developed countries (LDCs in short), such as Ethiopia in North Africa, western part of China in particular, the problem of famine is still their major problem to cope with; whereas in some more developed countries (MDCs in short), such as USA, they food production are in surplus which are even sufficient for large amount of export.
Physical factors are the dominant factors which contribute to the uneven distribution of food supplies in the world. The less developed countries usually locates at latitudes with extreme climate, therefore the soil are usually infertile and agriculture cultivation is hindered. In semi desert area for examples, the annual precipitation is generally lower than 500mm which is not sufficient for many types of crops. The condition is even worse in true desert area, which annual precipitation is lower than 250mm or even 100mm, like in Sahara Desert in Africa. The soil presence is aridisol, which is infertile with low organic content, low cation carrying capacity and moisture content. Therefore the land soil carrying capacity is very low and cannot handle intensive agriculture activities.
In these areas, huge scale of farming is impossible as there is a lack of sufficient and reliable water sources, faming can be practiced along the river, oasis farming and marginal farming in small scales at desert margin. As there are insufficient crops to be grown, high food demand from the rapid growing population can not be met. There are no sufficient crops as raw material for industrial development, let alone any for export to earn foreign exchange. Therefore the economic growth is very slow.
Besides extreme climate, the presence of relief, such as highland and high ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
In these areas, huge scale of farming is impossible as there is a lack of sufficient and reliable water sources, faming can be practiced along the river, oasis farming and marginal farming in small scales at desert margin. As there are insufficient crops to be grown, high food demand from the rapid growing population can not be met. There are no sufficient crops as raw material for industrial development, let alone any for export to earn foreign exchange. Therefore the economic growth is very slow.
Besides extreme climate, the presence of relief, such as highland and high mountains also restrict the development of agriculture. Due to the absence of flatland, irrigation and farm work would be difficult, large scale farming machines cannot be used also. Thus many crops cannot be grown, despite terracing farming can be used in some gentler relief. This is a common problem in many inland areas in China. Thus their agriculture can be only subsistence and usually intensive, as the scale cannot be afforded to be large.
In contrast, for some more developed countries, the climatic and relief condition is more favorable. For example, the Prairies in the wheat belt of USA and Canada extensive commercial arable farming which is usually wheat farming can be found because the presence large piece of flatland and rich grassland soils, black earth or dark brown soil.
Other human factors such as low education level, lack of contact to the outside world resulting in less influence by the technological breakthrough are also important. With low education level, the farmers are less susceptible to learn proper and new farming methods and perhaps the management of machines and irrigation systems. Some inland continental areas, where there is no advance communication network, the spreading of new skills and technology is also limited. Thus they are less likely to raise their production yield by the introduction of technological improvement.
In addition to the human factors, the lack of capital from the government is also important because they cannot provide better education, and teach them the importance of family planning. Therefore it is harder to control the rapid growing population, as their generally prefer larger family. They think that the more children they have, the more sources of labour. Thus the limited food production cannot support the growing population and leads to serious famine.
With sufficient capital from the government, it cannot subsidize its farmers for mechanization and help them in marking in distribution. This made the agricultural industry harder to survive. The LDCs therefore usually suffer from poverty and cannot afford import food at the same time.
The LDCs are also weaker in dealing with natural hazards. They are weak in preventing natural hazards such as flooding, they are also weak in coping with drought and earthquakes. The damage to the LDCs is usually very big and they have slow pace of recovery, thus worsening the problem of famine.
The MDCs in contrast again, have higher education standard and technological level are also to use machines such as combined harvesters and tractors to increase their production yield, government also helps the farmers a lot in marketing and offer subsidize which further encourage farming production. Therefore the distribution of food supplies is mainly concentrated in the MDCs, which usually have huge amount for export, while it is opposite in many of the LDCs.
In terms of short term aid, the MDCs can help the LDCs to overcome the problem of famine by selling their surplus crops and perhaps high yield improved seeds in low price. Many of the volunteer organization can help by encouraging the people in MDC to donate money and perhaps food. They are also help by transferring the donated money and food to the people in need.
In terms of long time help, the MDCs should help them in building the ability to sustain their agricultural industries by themselves. They can introduce improve and better farming practices to them, to increase yield and decrease loss. Such as the practice of crop rotation, fallowing, dry farming, soil conversation methods like windbreaks. These measures can help to reduce the chance of soil erosion and soil exhaustion, increasing the soil generating capacity, therefore making their farming more sustainable and avoid desertification in some semi arid area.
Additionally, the MDCs can introduce the proper use of technological improved cultural inputs in farming. Like fertilizers to improve soil fertility, weedicides, pesticides to prevent yield lost. They also help to educate the farmers of proper irrigation practice to reduce the salinzation and alkalization of soils in semi arid areas. Thus the chance of farmland abandonment due to decrease in fertility can be reduced.
Government or companies in MDCs can invest capital in the LDCs, such as large scale irrigation project and the agricultural industry. Some of the transnational companies in the MDCs invested in the plantation agriculture of the LDCs to produce Cacao, Sugar cane, rubber in tropical area, Brazil for example. By investing, the employment rate and income can be raised, thus they would have more capital in buying food or improve their own farming activities.
The MDCs may also invest in their large scale irrigation and earn money from the HEP electricity generation. The LDCs can in turn benefited from the stable water supple for farming, prevent flooding and minimize the loss in drought, with increase in production yields, the occurrence of famine may likely to be decreased.