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In this this essay, I will clearly say that there is an obligation for providing food security and that the obligation of providing food security to the world poor individual is totally the work of the government. Lack of food may be caused by government poor planning for the nation, natural calamities such as floods and drought which are unpredictable. It would not be obligation of rich country to support poor country, since a bigger percentage of the world population is poor. About third of the world population is rich with USA being on top of the list (Garrett Hardin, Lifeboat Ethics, p1). A rich country may just help if they feel like or just when they get confronted with the government of the country with the food security issue.
One of the major step that a country would take to have a long term food security is having a joint hand with other countries in creating a World Food Reserves, (Garett Hardin, Lifeboat Ethics, p2). This type of a joint is whereby countries come together contribute food and stores them in a food bank. This food is used to help people when in a certain country is faced with a calamity or an emergency.
It would not be fault of the people in a suffering country to suffer because of their government poor planning, as we all know in a country they could be food hoarding and unequal distribution of food to other parts of the country; the world food bank would help in such instances but the real question is for how long? How many country will benefit from it? To answer this, not many countries would benefit from withdrawing food every time they have an emergency. Withdrawal rates will be higher compared to deposition rate. The food will not be sufficient to help everyone in need at the end. This would teach the poor country lesson to improve the way they handle their food production and how they budget themselves or will forever drown in suffering,(Garett Hardin, Lifeboat Ethic p3).
It is obligation for a country to save a smaller percentage of their production for bad days ahead. A country does not portray a good picture by always parading themselves to other countries for help in case of any problem. This act tenders to keep people who would want to invest in that country away since it will be viewed that they have poor planning and would not be accountable for the investors money.
I would also argue out that it is obligation of a country facing food security issue to always to look into solving the issue of constant population growth. The population of such countries increase as twice as compared to country in rich countries. The government ought to see in to the issue of reducing the rate of reproduction. A rich country like USA would decide to extend a helping hand to a poor country faced with a calamity currently by distributing food to its refugee but what will happen to their children in future if the rate of population increase in the same rate or even higher?
The point I am trying to drive home is the issue of relieving the current situation of food insecurity without knowing what will happen in the future. No one knows about what will happen in the future, a country may be faced with a bigger famine they have never been faced with before because this are natural calamities and they are unpredictable. The best way to be prepared for such calamities is to reducing the rate of population growth where by a country is left with manageable population. There are organizations that create awareness on ways to reduce reproduction. By investing in such program, the country invest in a long term rather than investing in famine prevention which is only in the short run (Singer_1972-famine, p241).
Food security is all about providing a country with food thus keeping them from starvation. To reduce the risk of future starvation a government need to raise agricultural production and food supplies. This reduces the future suffering of its people. Short term problem would be to solve the current hunger issue which they can get aid from other country. When a country keeps solving short term problem, this leads to poverty manifestation in the future which makes it hard to improve the economy.
I would also say that it is good for rich country to always stretch a helping hand to the less fortunate. If it is within their power to prevent something bad from happening they ought to do. For instance, a country like Bengal would be faced with famine and people would die of starvation while USA would watch saying that they have enough only for themselves. That would be a selfish way of treating the less fortunate. They ought to at least stretch a small helping hand to Bengal (Singer_1972, Famine p231).
A rich country may help the poor country solve the issue of overpopulation in their country by proportioning of population in both countries. This leads to reduction of population in poor country and increasing population in rich country. This leaves the poor country with manageable population. This act of sharing tends to help the poor more in budgeting and managing the remaining population.
I would also say that for a poor country to be independent and budget themselves, they would seek foreign aid from rich countries by importing their advices and technology. For instance The Rockefeller and Ford foundation have invested in helping a number of country into improving their agricultural skills. This program has enabled revolution of crops that offer bigger harvest and greater resistance to crop damage.(Garrett Hardin, Lifeboat p3)
Education is also essential in a country. By a country educating its people, they are able to interact with people from other rich countries this gives them different ideas that they adopt into their economy. Education expose people to outside world hence they are able to have different ways of curbing the issue of food security in their country. Educated people reproduce less and thus less population growth.
I would conclude by saying that it’s fully the obligation of a government to always budget for its people and plan ahead for natural calamities. Having a food bank in a country cannot harm since a lot of food are being stored for future use. It should seek help from rich country to help them in long term investments rather than short term that will bring regrets and poverty in fully that repeats itself. A poor country should not seek to be helped to solve the current situation but also need to be given lesson to be independent.
