Despite the advances made in agriculture, many people around the world still go hungry. Why is this the case? What can be done about it?

 

People going hungry is a classic case of ecological overload. In any ecosystem, the carrying capacity is limited and if the population exceeds the capacity, imbalance creeps in. The excess population will either immigrate to a different place or will die out. But we humans do things differently. We don’t expel people from our community or let them die so easily.

The scientists have taken it upon themselves to bend the laws of nature and make sure the ever-growing population stays fed. However, they have their limitations and can increase the produce only so much. The population is increasing rapidly and upsetting the delicate balance of nature. A large part of the produce gets spoilt during transportation or fails to reach the market due to the under-developed market facilities. If the natural reasons were not enough, some of us decided to stock up agricultural produce and sell them at higher prices when demand goes up.

We can tweak our approach a bit to make sure that lesser people go hungry. We must invest more in agricultural and livestock research and make sure we dedicate all our efforts to food sustainability. We need to improve our transport and storage facilities so that agricultural produce can be shipped to distant locations with minimum wastage. Last but not the least, we need to make sure that suppliers do not illegally stock up supplies. Keeping these small things in mind will surely help make the world hunger-free.😊