A Right or a Privilege?
ActionAid, a global movement raising awareness for women’s rights and poverty everywhere, expressed their thoughts in their article called “Food Rights.” This document agued many controversial facts in support of the poor in developing nations. They explained that hunger isn’t caused by scarcity of food, but by governmental policies that create an unequal distribution of food and access to resources. Human greed lies at the foot of starvation around the world, as the article explains that “enough food is produced twice over every year than is needed to feed the world.” The reason people go without food is because they do not have access to land or clean water to produce food. One huge contributor to unequal distribution is Nestle, one of the largest food and drink companies in the world. They build factories in rural areas where land is needed most and abuse their limited freshwater. Also, industrial factories like Nestle contribute to climate change through the release of fossil fuel energy. This global warming hits rural farmers the hardest, as their small farms face serious threats of floods and droughts. “Food Rights” continues to explain that “over two-thirds of the world’s hungry live in rural areas and depend on land, proximity to water, and seeds to earn a living.” These rural communities rely on big families in order to have workers to provide for the family. The scarcity of food in these places is developing a positive feedback loop in which people lose their land or their access to water and grow poor, forcing them to have more children to support the families livelihood, and resulting in their larger families becoming more poor until eventual starvation. This cycle of events is depressing, but it does not have to remain that way. ActionAid advocates for the poor and for women all around the world. Contributing to their foundation, being more cognizant about how food is produced, and supporting politicians who recognize environmental crises are all ways to save people and the planet.
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Junior at Dakota High School.