Food Security/GMOs, India, Austin High school, Andrew Anderson

Almost 2 billion people in the world, one in four, do not have access to enough food.

26.4% is the estimated percentage of people who are malnourished in the world. The reason for

this isnt very straightforward, there are many factors. A few underlying causes of malnutrition

are poverty, population size and climate change. Many people in poverty simply just don't have

enough money for food, or don't have enough money for healthy food. This is due to lack of

income opportunities, lack of an education, and inability to stay healthy. At the end of the day

10% of the world lives in poverty, meaning they can't afford real food (World Vision). Population

size also plays a big role in the reasons for world hunger. As the population rapidly increases

across the developing world, this means there are more and more people to feed, yet less and less

space to produce food. Natural resource degradation and deforestation are also outcomes of high

population growth. Another big factor for malnutrition is global warming. 80% of the world's

hungry people live in disaster prone countries (wpusa). Not only does global warming cause the

temperature to be hot, its main harm is natural disasters because they consistently destroy land,

livestock, crops and food supplies. India holds 17.3% of the world’s population and 15.1 percent

of world’s undernourished population, which shows that they hold a huge burden of global food

insecurity (wpusa). Every year nearly 5000 children die due to not enough food consumption.

This results in 42% of the children under the age of five being underweight and 59% are stunted

(iosr). Similarly to the rest of the world, the main underlying cause for malnutrition in India is

poverty, along with other things.

World hunger is one of the most well known problems in the world. This results in a lot

of effort to try and help the problem, but the answer isn't very simple. There are many big

non-profit organizations that combat world hunger. A lot of money is donated from higher class

people to these organizations to help spread awareness of the problem, and to actually helpe
solve the problem. After many years of being under the radar, countries like the US have begun

to try and help too. Many NGOs, private companies, and universities have paired up with the US

in response. In the United States, these new partnerships came together to form the Feed the

Future Initiative, an anti-hunger response that has achieved impressive results. Nine million

people lifted out of poverty have been lifted out of poverty, 1.6 million households free from

hunger, and 1.8 million children have been properly nourished. Another way hunger was being

combatted, specifically in India, was the use of genetically modified organisms. GMOs were

illegally introduced to india in the late 90s, and it was first legally introduced by

Mahyco–Monsanto Biotech Ltd in 2002. GMOs were wide spread and used mainly by farmers to

help them grow food, which definitely helped with world hunger. In 2009, GMOs were made

illegal because of unknown health related issues.

India still faces the burden of undernutrition today. At the end of the day, 189.2 million

people in India go to sleep hungry, mainly children(dnaindia). Also 51.4% of women between

15 and 49 years are anaemic. Furthermore, 34.7% of the children aged under five in India are

stunted and 20% suffer from wasting, meaning their weight is too low for their height. The

prevalence of underweight people has been well known, and the prevalence of

overweight/obesity is increasing rapidly. The dual burden of underweight and overweight is very

alarming, and needs a better solution. Food security, and the mission to solve hunger has also

caused violence in india. Since GMOs were banned in 2009, many farmers depended on them

and it caused them to not be able to grow reliable crops anymore. This causes illegal protests that

ended in arrests and even violence. It is clear that India needs help, and it seems help is ready to

be given, so hopefully in the future we can work together to combat hunger.

https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts#:~:text=BACK%20T
O%20QUESTIONS-,How%20many%20people%20live%20in%20poverty%20in%20the%20worl
d%3F,according%20to%20the%20World%20Bank.

https://www.wfpusa.org/explore/wfps-work/drivers-of-hunger/climate-change/#:~:text=Climate%2
0starves%20the%20most%20vulnerable,livestock%2C%20crops%20and%20food%20supplies.