Food Security Persuasive Essay

Webster’s definition “Food security refers to the availability of food in sufficient quantity in a safe and nutritious form and one's access to it for a healthy and active life. This definition for food security clearly sets out the different sections involved when discussing food security, globally. These sections include many different aspects of food security. For example: the physical availability of food, and economic access to food, and the sustainability of these aspects to deliver adequate levels of food security. “In Sub-Saharan Africa today, almost 33 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lack sufficient food security”( “Achieving Food Security in Africa: Challenges and Issues”1).

The region of Africa as a whole remains constant to frequent food crises and famines hich are triggered by droughts, floods, and economic downturns. Food Security in sub-Saharan African households has been lowered because of the countries inability to produce the right resources to import food. Sub-Saharan Africa is dependent on agriculture which is most vulnerable to climate change making many methods of development futile but few methods supply satisfactory results. The use of agriculture can improve food security in sub-Saharan Africa by changing to different farming techniques such as using mulching, composting and crop rotation. Mulching in Africa can help improve food security in a multitude of ways. Mulches are materials placed over the soil surface to maintain moisture”(treesaregood). By using mulching plants and vegetables are able to contain moisture even under extreme weather conditions. This is beneficial to Sub-Saharan Africa because of the many droughts they get, it is harder for plants and vegetables to grow and soon end up dying. By maintaining water plants are able to grow healthier and stronger.

Water conservation is not the only thing mulching can help with. “Coupled with conserving moisture mulching prevents the compression and crusting of the soil aused by watering, and rain”( Russell). Because of the unpredictable rain in the Sub-Saharan, the soil is compressed and losses water which leads to the drying out and crusting of plants. By using mulching it helps stops moisture from traveling up through the soil, and leaving behind the dissolved minerals as a crust which would have blocked the plants from growing to the surface. Mulches also provide food for earth worms. “Earthworms are a valuable resource in the garden, Earthworms tunnel deep into the soil allowing air and water to easily reach plant roots”( mulchingaround).

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By mulch attracting earthworms plants are able to obtain water and oxygen easier which allows the soil to become richer and grow faster, which is exactly what the soil in the Sub-Saharan needs. Mulching helps improve food security by allowing plants and vegetables in the Sub-Saharan to grow at a faster rate which can be harvested and available more to different parts of the region. Tons of waste is generated through Africa and usually ends up in wastelands or turned into open dumps. Composting is an easy way of getting rid of waste in the Sub-Saharan and at the same time helping the environment. Composting is to fertilize with a mixture of decaying organic matter. ”(Dictionary). Compost decomposes all the organic material and creates soil. By creating soil, it allows for a lot more room to plant and grown food making it widely available and easy to access. . “Small-scale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and the entire African continent can improve yields by up to 100% through combining fertilizer micro dosing and manures application”( New Farming Techniques Help Improve Food Security). By adding different types of compost together farmers in the Sub-Saharan can help improve soil and plant growth by 00%, this percentage can drastically help improve food security all over the African region by using organic materials to help create compost. By using compost, Africa’s plant growth can improve by enriching the soil that it gets its nutrients from.

“Compost also has the benefit of adding organic matter to the soil”( The New Vision for Agriculture: Transforming agriculture through collaboration). By adding organic material to soil it gives it the nutrients it needs to grow faster and helps contain water. There have also been new methods of composting called a “Compost toilet”. Composting toilets are toilet systems which treat human waste by composting and dehydration to produce a useable end-product that is a valuable soil additive”( What is a Composting Toilet? ). Compost toilets allow waste entering the toilet to be evaporated into the atmosphere through the vent leaving amount of soil to be used as a natural fertilizer. As helpful as compost toilets are they are quite expensive which makes it harder for Sub-Saharan to use and can slowly but surely improve the food security issue. Crop rotation in sub-Saharan Africa isn’t anything new and has been allowing a more diverse roup of foods to grow which expands the choice of food.

“A crop rotation is a series of different crops planted in the same field following a defined seasonal order” (merriam-webster). There is a wide diversity of cropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa. “A three years' trial was held in a farmers' field in Ghana to study the effect of sole crops “crops that are grown alone” compared to conventional crop rotation”( Magdoff). The studies showed that crop rotation allowed a faster growing and more diverse choice of food by using crop rotation. Through rotations, labor is educed and better distributed throughout the year allowing for a more organized labor structure. “Crop rotation can also balance the production of residues by alternating crops that produce few and or short-lived residues”(Toensmeier). This allows a lesser amount residues left over and allows them to be removed. With more residue removed it easier to grow more plants as well. “Many crops may have positive effects on succeeding crops in the rotation, leading to greater production overall”(Kroeck). Because of the positives effects of crop rotation sub-Saharan Africa has made it one of its number one food security support methods.

By allowing greater production crop rotation allows for better access to food and availability which increase the amount of food security in the Sub-Saharan and other counties. There are many different reasons why Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from low food security one of them being the effect of greenhouse gases on the environment. “Greenhouse gas emissions per person from urban waste management activities are greater in sub-Saharan African countries than in other developing countries, and are increasing as the population becomes more urbanized”( waste management through composting in Africa). As Africa becomes more rbanized the waste becomes greater and harder to contain. The waste from greenhouse gasses effects the agriculture making it hard to grow food, which lowers its food security even more. Climate change also plays a huge role in agriculture. “African countries are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their dependence on rain fed agriculture, high levels of poverty”(Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture). Because of the ever changing climate and the dependence on rain, it makes agriculture hard to become fully sufficient, if the crops aren’t getting enough rain and minerals needed.

Manpowered labor is a necessity in increasing food security through agriculture. “It is to be expected that the HIV/AIDS epidemic will cause serious damage to the agriculture sector in those countries, especially in countries that rely heavily on manpower for production. Because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic many farmers and workers have become ill and unable to produce crops which leads to declining yields and agriculture production. The reduction of production because of HIV/AIDS in Africa has led to food insecurity. After researching the food security situation in sub-Saharan Africa and food security in ther countries the research shows that they cannot improve if more attention and support is not given to agriculture development. By using crop rotation, mulching and composting, farmers can cultivate their farms and use the same plots in repeatedly. Crop rotation allows for a more diverse choice of food and greater production overall. Mulching conserves moisture and improves the fertility and health of the soil. Composting is used as a soil conditioner and natural fertilizer. One major benefit of these farming methods is that it allows people to stop using slash and burn cultivation.

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