Cameron Shelton The Environment 0845 Article Critique #2 The article I chose to read for the second critique

was from the BBC News. The article is titled, Why Famine Stalks Africa. Keith Somervile wrote the article. The main part of the article was discussing how many countries in Africa are currently experiencing major food shortages. With the population increasing each year this problem seems to be growing at an exponential rate. The article gives shocking, staggering figures that put the exact problem in perspective, the article reads, Estimates from UN agencies, African governments and relief charities put the number at risk in the Horn of Africa at about 15 million, over 14 million in southern Africa and hundreds of thousands in the Sahel region of West Africa. Keith Somervile, the author, believes that the current drought is ruining the crops and harvests, disrupting the water supply, and causing the livestock to die. Another point the article makes is that Africa is not very selfsufficient. While most countries import and export food regularly, Africa does at an extremely high rate, they are not very self sufficient when it comes to being able to create their own stream of food. This deals directly with chapter 11 in the book. These famines that Africa is experiencing is causing more problems for the people in Africa, along with the food drought the people are becoming malnutrioned and young kids are suffering every day. The article lists other factors that cause famines in Africa, Other factors are at work, including: armed conflict, corruption and the mismanagement of food supplies, environmental degradation, trade policies that harm African agriculture and the long-term economic effects of Aids. Famine is caused by the shortage or inability of people to obtain food, these African countries also have a hard time storing the food, and many uneducated individuals simply waste food by not knowing how to store the food properly. Due to the lack of food, this often leads to anger amongst the people leading to war and improper government moves. I personally feel that these problems are all related, the lack of food leads to malnutrion, which leads to dying people, which leads to war and anger. The article doesnt give any concrete ways to solve the problem but I personally had a few. One idea would be to educate the people. Educate the people on how to harvest and store the food properly so that the country could become self-sufficient. If this problem is not solved soon then I feel the problem in Africa will continue to occur and no change will occur. These people are suffering every day from lack of food and maybe it doesnt affect us as Americans all the way in Philadelphia but it affects the people as a whole. There wasnt any bias in this article, it simply stated the facts that are taking place in Africa at the moment and it shows us what the effects will be if there is no change. I believe that all facts were represented throughout the article. This article was very informative.