Tuesday, 6 February 2007
Agriculture, Malnutrition, and Obesity
Our case study this week focuses on the importance of agriculture for implementing and reaching the MDGs. It seems very effective to address the vast poverty and malnutrition problems as the true interrelated issues that they are. It also occurred to me, as I was reading the case study and watching this week’s videos that an increased and developed agriculture industry in the developing world, would not only allow the local communities to flourish, but could also help with the increased obesity trends. Fatty foods are mass produced, causing them to be less expensive than fresh produce, so if the agricultural sector of these developing nations could be opened wide enough, and use free trade to their benefit, an increased amount of healthful produce can result in lower fruits and vegetable prices around the world. As a result, this would not only address the issues of malnutrition by providing both food and profitable revenue for the developing communities, but focus could also be redirected for the populations with high obesity rates to adopt healthier lifestyles at a lower financial cost.
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5 comments:
Well summarized Ivette. What can we do to make sure of this? Jordan.
Ivette you have made some tangible points in your blog. To answer Jordan’s question I think we should involve governmental organizations and United Nations associations and carry out a group work to be able to over come the challenge of disparity that we are facing with. We know that there are more than enough food that is being produced in the world daily, but our main issue is not having the correct amount of food in the right region of the world! Any other thoughts?
Hey Ivette. That would be great. It's unfortunate that there's so much unseen political imbalance, bureaucracy, and such. Along with what Liyan said, some of Sachs' steps in "The End of Poverty" seem applicable: commit to ending poverty, raise the voice of the poor, redeem the role of the US in the world, rescue the IMF and the World Bank, strengthen the UN, harness global science, promote sustainable development, and of course, make a personal commitment. We would definitely need to take these into consideration as well as economical forces as part of a comprehensive stakeholder analysis.
Ivette, I definitely agree that this is a good idea. Like any other business, however, to make money, you have to have money first. If the developing nations are the ones who plan to mass produce agricultural products, where should this money come from?
One other reason why fast food is so cheap is because it is made from parts of the animals we would never consider eating whole. While I think mass production of healthy foods will drive costs down, it is unlikely that it can compete with "animal trash." I guess only time will tell.
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