Beyond+the+Eternal+Food+Fight

=Beyond the Eternal Food Fight - Aria=
 * NY Times:[| http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/beyond-the-eternal-food-fight/]
 * January 10, 2011
 * **Summary:** The latest price surge in food has brought food costs up to or past peaks reached in 2008. Drought, heat, conflict, and flooding are contributing factors to this increase in food prices. Also, an increase in the world population and various climate changes have sparked this great rise in cost. Increasingly more poor people are less able to buy food while the very rich have no problem in doing so, causing great social unrest in some third world countries. Experts have agreed that calamities such as civil wars also contribute to the fast-rising demand for food, straining the farmers' capacity to keep up. However, these same experts claim that humanity on the whole has always overcome these shortages and has found ways to produce ever more food even as mouths multiply and demand rises. However, others are more skeptical as to what the prices may become in the near future. A solution is greatly needed.
 * **Vocabulary:**
 * **Supply:** The entire relationship between the quantity supplied of a good or service and its price.
 * **Supply Curve:** A graph showing the relationship between the quantity supplied and the price of a good or service, holding everything else constant.
 * **Demand:** The entire relationship between the quantity demanded of a good or service and its price.
 * **Demand Curve:** A graph showing the relationship between the quantity demanded and the price of a good or service, holding everything else constant
 * **Buffer Stock Scheme:** When commodities are bought and stored when there is a surplus in the economy and are sold from these stores when there are shortages in the economy.
 * **Commodity Agreement:** When different countries work together to operate a buffer stock scheme for a particular commodity.
 * **Graph:**
 * [[image:S&D.Food_crisis.png width="535" height="304"]]
 * The article mentions that some people believe that this shortage in food and surge in food prices is not that big a deal, however, as apparent from the graph above, both the food shortage and the food prices have increased by a factor of two, creating severe problems. I personally think that the "experts" who believe that this is not so much a big deal may be wrong this time, because thousands of poor people can no longer afford food. From my point of view, I see that there are multiple solutions to this major problem. First of all, the earth's population is too large to be supported with the food needed per capita, henceforth a solution to the food crisis would be to restrict the family size by enforcing a "one -child policy" such as China has done. Countries should also work together to create commodity agreements for the production of food so that everyone is able to purchase the food that they need. Governments should also distribute condoms and invest in education so that people do not accidentally create "more mouths to feed."
 * The article mentions that some people believe that this shortage in food and surge in food prices is not that big a deal, however, as apparent from the graph above, both the food shortage and the food prices have increased by a factor of two, creating severe problems. I personally think that the "experts" who believe that this is not so much a big deal may be wrong this time, because thousands of poor people can no longer afford food. From my point of view, I see that there are multiple solutions to this major problem. First of all, the earth's population is too large to be supported with the food needed per capita, henceforth a solution to the food crisis would be to restrict the family size by enforcing a "one -child policy" such as China has done. Countries should also work together to create commodity agreements for the production of food so that everyone is able to purchase the food that they need. Governments should also distribute condoms and invest in education so that people do not accidentally create "more mouths to feed."