SOC 450 Assignment 2 Whitepaper on Food Security
SOC 450 Assignment 2 Whitepaper on Food Security
Whitepaper on Food Security
The members of the United Nations found great value in the whitepaper you provided on population growth. They are now asking you to expand the whitepaper to include global food security as it relates to population growth and poverty. Read the overview and provide an assessment based on the questions below.
I. Overview
We can define global food security as the effort to build food systems that can feed everyone, everywhere, and every day by improving its quality and promoting nutritional agriculture (1). That said, there are certain practices that can advance this project:
Identifying the underlying causes of hunger and malnutrition
Investing in country-specific recovery plans
Strengthening strategic coordination with institutions like the UN and the World Bank
Encouraging developed countries to make sustained financial commitments to its success
We must bear in mind that more than 3 billion people—nearly one-half of the world’s population—subsist on as little as $2.50 a day, with nearly 1.5 billion living in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day. According to the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and other relief agencies, about 20,000 people (mostly children) starve to death in the world every day, for a total of about 7 million people a year. In addition, about 750 million (twice the population of the United States) do not have access to clean drinking water, meaning that some one million people die every year from diarrhea caused by water-borne diseases.
The earth’s population has grown since it reached 7 billion in 2010. It is expected to reach 8 billion in 2025, 9 billion in 2040, and 11 billion by the end of the 21st century (2). If the demand for food is predicted to rise 50% by 2030 and 70% by 2050, the real problem is not necessarily growing enough food, but rather making that amount available to people. Moreover, food illnesses are prevalent, with nearly 600 million reported cases of foodborne diseases each year. These mainly affect children but can also negatively impact the livelihood of farmers, vendors, trade associations, and ultimately, can reduce the Gross Domestic Product (national income) of a country. These issues can impose tremendous human, economic, social, and fiscal costs on countries, so addressing them allows governments to devote more resources to making desperately needed infrastructure improvements that raise the quality of life for everyone.
It is not enough to have adequate supplies of food available. Policies that focus exclusively on food production can exacerbate the problem, particularly if, to satisfy the need for quantity, the quality of the food is left wanting.
Reasons for Food Insecurity
Certainly, poverty and the contributing systemic internal conditions are the driving factors behind keeping adequate food resources from reaching people, but it is only one of several. Others are discussed next.
Inadequate Food Distribution: The reality is that there is more than enough food in the world to feed its people, but the primary cause of famine is not poor weather conditions as much as it is getting the food to the people who need it most. Quite often, disruptions in food distribution result from political instability and poor infrastructure (such as poorly functioning port facilities, lack of transportation options, and inadequate road networks). Paradoxically, although the world’s population is increasing, the amount of potential food available will increase along with it, due mostly to advances in bio-agricultural engineering and seed immunity to molds.
Writing in the late 18th century, Thomas Malthus warned that the global population would exceed the earth’s capacity to grow food, in that while the population would grow exponentially, food production would grow only arithmetically. Although this theory was proved invalid, its propagation has unfortunately resulted in some governments rationalizing political choices that avoid helping the poverty-ridden and starving.
Political-Agricultural Practices: The widespread use of microbiological, chemical, and other forms of pesticides in food continues to be a serious issue throughout the global food chain. Widespread use of fertilizers also causes illness in millions of people every year, not only from the food itself, but from run-off into streams and rivers, contaminating entire water supplies. The human, social, fiscal, and economic costs of such practices impede improvements not only in the raising of crops, but in their distribution. Added to this, the rising demand in developed countries for biofuels, refined mostly from corn and soybean, reduces the amount of arable land devoted to producing food.
The failure of many farmers in the developing world to rotate their crops harms the replenishing of nutrients necessary to continue growing crops. In addition, neglecting to allow land to remain fallow exhausts the soil, making it much more difficult to raise a decent amount of food per acre the following growing season.
Economic Issues: The fact is, government policies that focus on growing cash crops, for example, are designed solely to export them to earn foreign exchange. This may be fine for the government in its effort to earn money, but the result is that farmers end up growing for foreign markets and not domestic ones, leading to shortages of necessary staples. Consequently, the poorest of the population are frozen out of the local markets because they cannot afford the food that remains to be sold (3).
Civil Strife: Civil war can interrupt the flow of food from gathering depots, such as ports, to distribution centers where it can be handed out to people. During the 1990s, Somalia was particularly hard hit by their civil war, as clans fought for control of the main port at Mogadishu, which affected the flow of food to the rest of the population. In this case, as with many civil wars, whoever controls the supply of food controls the country. In failed and failing states like Zimbabwe, Congo, Haiti, South Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, food is very often another weapon used by one segment of the population against another.
Sources:
1. Peter Timmer. 2015. Food Security and Scarcity: Why Ending Hunger Is So Hard. Foreign Affairs magazine.
2. The United Nations Population Division. 2017. World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision. https://www.un.org/development/desa/publications/world-population-prospects-the-2017-revision.html
3. Will Martin. November 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
II. Assessment
The issue is not the lack of food in the world, but the access to food. In many developing countries, the food shortage is due to governmental control over food. These governments maintain control and preference by limiting access of nutritious food to certain groups, thereby weaponizing food.
In this second assignment, research the impact of poverty on global food security and the potential technological solutions. Write a minimum of four pages (not including the cover letter) assessing the impact of food insecurity. Select one country from the United Nations list of developing countries to use as an example throughout your assessment. The completed version of this assignment will include the following items:
Cover page: Include your name, title of course, name of the developing country you have chosen from the UN list, current date, and the name of your instructor.
Introduction: Introduce the topic of the whitepaper (half-page minimum).
One-page (minimum) answers to each of the following questions (for a total of three pages):
What is food insecurity, and what role does population growth play in it?
What specific factors interrupt the flow of food from the source to the people in the developing country you selected?
What forms of technology can be used to reduce hunger and improve food security? Explain how these technological solutions would work.
Note: Give examples in your responses to each of the above questions as it relates to the developing country you have chosen.
Conclusion: A one-half page (minimum) conclusion.
Cite at least five credible sources excluding Wikipedia, dictionaries, and encyclopedias for your assessment. A brief list of suggested resources has been provided at the end of the course guide.
This course requires use of Writing Standards (SWS). The format is different compared to other University courses. Please take a moment to review ?the SWS documentation for details. (Note: You’ll be prompted to enter your Blackboard login credentials to view these standards.)
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
Propose a plan to address the issue of global food security in underdeveloped countries that considers the impact of prior solutions.
Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic/organization of the paper, and language and writing skills, using the following rubric:
Lopes Write Policy
For assignments that need to be submitted to Lopes Write, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy
The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
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Communication
Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.
Important information for writing discussion questions and participation
Welcome to class
Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to
I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.
Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.
If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.
Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.
Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.
I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!
Hi Class,
Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.
Contact me if you have any questions.
Important information on Writing a Discussion Question
- Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
- There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
- Include in-text citations in your response
- Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
- Follow APA-7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor
- A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
- Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
- Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
- Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
- Follow APA 7th edition
- Points will be deducted if the above is not followed
- Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
- Here are some helpful links
- Student paper example
- Citing Sources
- The Writing Center is a great resource