Political Ecology: The World Food System
Global difference in food patterns is one of the most noticed and researched traits of world's nations. What we eat and how we consume it, is part of our culture and living style. It is very obvious that an Arab living in KSA is going to consume more dates rather than Fish as compared to a Bengali living in India. Availability is a key factor which is a decisive factor in our eating habits. However, one cannot forget the importance of available capital or money, in affecting our eating habits. Thus availability and affordability are the key factors which play important role in determining our eating patterns. Similarly, this is the reason why a family living in Germany would have a totally opposite food intake as compared to the one living in Mali, Africa.
In 2005, Peter Menzel published his book called, "Hungary Planet: What the world eats." In his work, Peter shared photographs of different families (along with the food they consume on weekly basis) from all over the globe. What was most disappointing was the disparity between the food consumed by the most affluent and the neediest ones.
It was interesting to observe a difference between the German family and the Malinian family (photographs are given in the appendix A). The German family called "The Melanders," a family of four, had a weekly consumption of food worth $501. On the other hand, the Natomo family from Mali, had a weekly consumption of almost $27. The difference between the kind of food consumed is rather drastic. Statistics gathered by Food and Agriculture Organization mentioning calories consumption per capita in developed and underdeveloped countries, are given in Figure 1.
The Melanders, have a weekly consumption varying from flavored bread to cereals, soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, processed food and raw meat and poultry etc. whereas, the Natomos have only raw grains and vegetable as their disposal, which is utilized by them during three meals of the day. Also, the procurement of food is also very contrasting. The Melanders, perform...
Political Ecology of the World Food System One of the common challenges that have been impacting the world is the automation of various food systems. This is in response to less people living in the country and more residing in urban areas. Moreover, changes in technology and the commercialization of the food industry are making it difficult for individual farmers to survive. As a result, the food system has become commercialized
Political Ecology of the World Food System In the readings examined for this paper, the one central theme is the way politics affects how the environment is treated and how that treatment of the environment then correlates to the food and clean water supply of people all over the world. Nitrogen in fertilizer is one of the big problems, because it does more than just get into the crops which it
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