Comparison Essay

Essay 3 I have chosen the article “How We Can Feed the World” by Mike Mack. This article focus on the issues of food security. With the technologies today, we can send men to space, we can build machines to work for us, we can see other across the world, and we made the impossible possible. We should not have the problems with food security with such technologies, but the problem does exist. I came from a middle class family where we don't have any problems with putting food on our dinner table every night, and I thought that every family would be able to do the same. Until a year ago when I participated in a volunteer program where I went to different places to distribute foods, then I realize that even in the United States , we have family who can't put foods on the dinner tables. Even in an advance country like the United States can have problem with food security, countries all over the world would have the same problem. According to WHO.int, food security is built on three pillars which are food availability, food access, and food use, and food security is a complex issue that involve health, economic, and environment. It is a serious issue. In the following essay, I will discuss the three reasons why the world is having troubles with food security. The first reason is the growth of worldwide population, then there is the ignorance of people, and finally is the underinvestment of government. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 4.17 people are born per second and 1.8 people die per second. The world population is increasing by 2.37 people per second. The fast growth of the populations around the world is the first and the main reason why the issue of food security is addressed greatly recently. “In 2050 the world's population is expected to increase to 9 billion, up from 6.5 billion today” (373). The population will grow almost by 1/3 in 2050 from now. The reason why the population is growing is because of better technology and better medical conditions. We have lowered the death rate and lengthened the average living time of people. Currently, the United States is doing great on providing affordable, quality food to the citizens. The Majority of the people don't have to worry about putting food on the table in the United States. But how about other countries? India and China have the largest population in the world. Can their people afford quality food? May be the answer is yes, but how about in 10 years? 20 years? We may not have problems with food now, but with the fast growing populations, we can't guarantee that we won't have the problems in the future. It is better to prepare now than later. The United States' “farmers have successfully demonstrated the value of technology, not only through the use of seed and crop protection products....but also by adopting modern, advanced farming practices”(373). This brings up another cause to the issue of food security. There are people and countries that did not see the importance of food security. Mack states that when the crisis of food shortage is at hand, “many other nations have been less receptive to agriculture science and innovation”(373). They are ignorant, and they don't see the issues in the future. For example, the European Union has strict limitations on the use of biotechnology. They are proposing regulations that will decrease “wheat and other cereal production across Europe by 30 percents” (373). They are not helping with the food security, and they are making it worst. If they continue to reject biotechnology that will increase the production of food, not only the goal of feeding the world is impossible, but also feeding their own people will be impossible in the future. There are also many myths associated with modern farming practices that stop the people from using biotechnology. Those myths need to be debunked and announced to the public. The use of pesticides has been a great issue in farming districts. Mack states that

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