Main Causes of Food Shortages

This is not just an academic exercise; it's one that will

help you to see food shortages as they develop - before

it's too late.

Unfortunately, you may have many opportunities to watch

these common food shortage causes unfold.

Food shortages are currently a reality affecting large

parts of the world, including impoverished families in

developed countries.

Greece, Spain, China, India, and Venezuela are just some

of the countries where very large numbers of people are

currently going hungry. But, hunger is coming closer and

closer to home.

In the United States, nearly 50 million people are living

with the uncertainty of not knowing when and where they

will get their next meal.

What causes this widespread hunger?

* Nature

Extreme weather is increasing in many parts of the world.

Drought, in particular, has been a major player in food

shortages during these early years of the 21st century.

It is currently the most common reason for the food shortage.

Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Guatemala are just some of

the countries currently suffering from several years'

long food crisis at the hands of drought.

Although the farmers in these countries are used to

dealing with low levels of rainfall, often by selling off

livestock, several consecutive years of drought have left

their resources depleted.

* Poverty

A more common reason for hunger in all regions of 

the world is the economy.

Greek charities report that around 90% of the people in

lower class city neighborhoods are currently subsiding on

food banks and soup kitchens.

The cause? The collapse of the Greek economy in 2009.

Without jobs, it doesn't matter that there is food to be

had; many people can no longer afford it.

And when the poor are hungry, they are weak, more likely

to fall ill, and less likely to be able to take action to

get out of poverty and satiate their hunger.

Poverty is a self-perpetuating hunger cycle.

* Lacking infrastructure

In the developing world, one of the main reasons for

hunger is that the infrastructure needed to feed the

hungry is not prioritized, or there are no funds for it.

There are not enough roads, silos, and warehouses. There

is no infrastructure for getting water to the crops.

This either raises the costs of the food produced beyond

what people can pay, or it means that the food does not

get to the people regardless of what they are willing to

pay.

At its worst, it means that food is produced but spoils.

This is a major problem for many developing countries; yet

their governments continue to spend money on urban

developments.

Because the farmers cannot sell their food, they cannot

grow more, and so a downward spiral begins.

* Unsustainable farming practices

This world is rife with unsound farming practices.

Deforestation, overgrazing, and over-cropping are just a

few of the problems the environment faces.

We poison our water with fertilizers, and we kill all of

the pollinators with insecticides so that our crops won't

grow in the future.

We leave our fields bare in the winter winds, leading to

large soil losses and we spread human waste on food

crops, introducing diseases into our soil.

We plow and we spray so much that nothing lives in the

soil, and the only way to make it fertile again is to

poison our water with more chemical fertilizers.

Never mind how we are patenting modified seed so that

farmers in developing countries can't save seed from year

to year but have to plunge into financial ruin and go

hungry themselves.

Don't get me wrong; I love the countryside and have great

respect for farmers. It is really good out there!

But, there are also widespread bad practices, even in the

developed world. Farmers are often forced into these

practices by government subsidies and regulations.

In many parts of the world, the soil is simply dying. There

is nothing left for it to give - until, of course, we

start taking better care of it.

When the soil erodes, salinate and becomes desert, people

go hungry.

* War

Lastly, the war continues to be the main reason for hunger and

food shortages in the 21st century.

Unlike during World War II, when food imports were cut off

and supplies had to be saved for the troops, war-based

food crises today are often more acute.

Many of the current armed conflicts are displacing

millions of refugees. These refugees need to be fed, and

the regions giving them refuge cannot feed all of those

new hungry mouths.

It's not because those regions aren't normally perfectly

well-equipped to feed their people. There are just, very

suddenly, too many of them to feed.

There you have it, and that is not even getting into the

postulated reasons for coming food crises, such as global

climate change. But it's a good start to understanding why

so many go hungry now and why your family might go without

food in the future.