Alex Clute
February 6, 2011
1800 EST
According to the Guardian, in Somalia a drought has lead to food shortages and the death of livestock, causing prices to rise sharply. One in three children are malnourished with people concentrating on Mogadishu, where food supplies are more readily available and prices lower. Other people are selling off what few possesses they have to raise money to travel to Kenya. Aid to many parts of the country has been hindered by the opposition of the al-Shabaab Islamist group, which controls large parts of the nation and rejects foreign aid.
This would seem to be just the latest crisis in what has been dubbed the global food crisis. There are many causes driving up the price of food, but one particularly troublesome one is the conversion of agricultural lands to the production of biofuels, which constitute one-third of all major land purchases by investors. An additional factor is the degradation to farm land brought on by intense farming methods and urban expansion, amounting to approximately 35 million hectares of farmland being lost annually.
Somalia faces malnutrition crisis
Global food crisis forecast as prices prices reach record highs
5 comments:
I could not imaging living in such circumstances. Do you know if the US has made any efforts to help alleviate this crisis?
Most articles cite the armed conflict as an impediment to bringing in relief. The transitional government controls little of the country and al-Shabaab has supposedly taken a stance of rejecting foreign assistance. While it difficult to tell, the crisis seems to be primarily located in the south of the country, which is controlled by al-Shabaab. While there are problems elsewhere in the country, these news articles tend to glaze over the situation by generalizing the whole country. For example, the northernmost part of Somalia, called Somaliland, is a relatively stable region with an, as of yet, unrecognized government. Each region has its issues and the people reporting the news each have their agendas. So one news article reports that the Transitional Government is possibly supporting piracy, while another news source says its al-Shabaab. What is really going on? Its hard to say. Oh yeah, you asked about the US. Well, I can't really say.
Thank you so much for sharing it.
Food Shortage is a very big problem in incomings days. The world is standing on the brink of an unprecedented global food shortage. These severe shortages are being created by new weather patterns bombarding our planet. Crops are failing due to flooding or drought brought on by this catastrophic weather.
These are all facts critical to understanding Somali piracy. They are also rarely reported on. It took attacks on international shipping lanes and pleasure craft for us to sit up and take notice.Ship for Sale
Why people still use to read news papers when in this technological globe everything is existing on web?
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