Why does food insecurity happen:
How many people are food insecure:
- Food distribution
- Political-Agricultural practices: Many different political-agricultural practices contribute to food insecurity worldwide. Some of these factors include substituting commodity crops for food crops (e.g. growing corn instead of vegetables) and heavy exportation of food crops at the expense of food security of the exporting country. In addition, the demand for biofuels, which are currently produced using corn and soy, has further decreased the amount of arable land that could be used for food production.
- Environmental factors including natural disasters such as droughts have been implicated in food security quite frequently. Other environmental impacts include soil degradation, including salinization which is caused by heavy irrigation, desertification, erosion, and pollution of the soil.
- Other economical and political reasons include the rise in food prices over the last several years.
How many people are food insecure:
- The USDA reported that 14.5 percent of American households were food insecure at least some time during 2010.Of the 14.5 percent that were food insecure, 5.4 percent were classified as having very low food security.
- In 1999, the FAO estimated that over 1.2 billion people world wide were chronically food insecure.
- Asia, including India, was the most food insecure region, with 642 million undernourished people. Over 15 million of the undernourished were in developed countries.
- Individually, food insecurity can cause physical, social and psychological problems in both children and adults.