Service Learning Assignment
Poverty and food insufficiency in the world. There are places in the world like
Africa that have many food production and enough food to feed the poor. A lot
of these places with enough food sources tend to be in the most need. More
than one billion people--one-sixth of the world's population--live in extreme
poverty on less than $1 a day. One billion of the seven billion in the world are
in extreme poverty. That’s one in seven people of the world are living on less
that $1 a day. The concept of food security is defined as including both
physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as
well as their food preferences. In many countries, health problems related to
dietary excess are an ever increasing threat, In fact, malnutrition and
foodborne diarrhea have become double burden. What we need to do, rather
than looking at existing resources and asking what incremental improvements
can be made, is to figure out what is needed to fix the problems, then organize
efforts and dollars around those solutions.
The poverty Line
Intersection Theory: Multiple Disadvantage
Culture of poverty
The working poor
The underclass
Structural-Functional
News Articles on Poverty and Food
Insufficiency
•
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/20
13/02/14/ending_extreme_poverty_in_ou
r_time_obama
•
•
Obama wants to join with our
allies to end extreme poverty in
the next two decades. The
number of people in extreme
poverty in the world between
2000-2010 has dropped by half
but the numbers could have been
affected not by people that have
earned more than a dollar a day
(extreme poverty level) but by
china and India’s massive
economic gains.
• This article is about how our lack
of definition in our definition of
poverty is part of the problem;
S.P.M. and the official measure
used by government agencies.
The both measure and define
poverty differently. If one was
chosen as the official measure
then there would either be
problems for children or the
elderly.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/201
3/03/13/who-is-poor/
News Articles on Poverty and Food
Insufficiency continued..
•
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/1/120.short
•
The purpose of this article was to study and examine the relationship between food
insufficiency and physical, mental and social health
•
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040301
A New Study on Food Insecurity and HIV Risk Behaviour
What I Learned Working at a Food
Bank
•
Food banks are distribution facilities that warehouse, repackage and distribute
contributed food to member organizations and charities. I worked at the food
pantry at the Church of Christ in Ogden, Utah. There was a lot of food that we
had to go through and put together in bags. Later a group of people went
around and distributed all the food to people who were in need. There was a
long list of names and addresses. I learned a lot while working at the food
pantry. I realized that many of the people who were in need were normal
everyday people. If you saw them, you would not know that they were in
need. But many people who are lucky enough and have jobs and a home and
a family still struggle with making ends meet and feeding their families. There
were people that were gave food to that had two and three jobs and they
were still struggling. I feel that the food insufficiency problem in the United
States is at 16% in 2012 and that most people in poverty are children. I feel
that our tax dollars could make it where no one would every have to be in
poverty. If we were to focus on putting our tax dollars to more important
things like food, health and education (I personally feel that these things are
necessities) rather than spend our tax dollars (56%) on war, then we could
What I Learned Working at a Food
Bank
• Not only have a healthier, happier and more productive society but also it
would help us to live in a better world. Our priorities as a country are not
where they should be. Something that I didn’t know about food banks:
Every year the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service provides 1.9 billion
pounds of food to stock part of the National School Lunch Program and
provide food to the Summer Food Service Program, the Child and Adult
Care Food Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the
Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations and The Emergency
Food Assistance Program that allocates food to state and local agencies for
distributions through food banks or to feeding sites like soup kitchens and
homeless shelters. Also, food banks solicit and rely on large donations
from local and national businesses and nonprofit organizations. I
personally was surprised by how many people walked in with food to
donate. I was nice to see people happy to contribute to something that
would help so many people.
What I Would Do to Solve The Problem
of Food Insufficiency
•
I would first revise the budget and I would change what we spend our tax
dollars on. We would not be spending anywhere near the 56% that we do on
war. I would try to help our country on more than just the poverty issue, but
also the health and education issue. I think that in order to live a fulfilling,
happy life that these basics need to be meet. There would be free higher
education for all and free health care, I would make school lunch free to all
children. Taxes would most likely have to be higher but hopefully not by a lot. I
would change the way we produce meat. Since 40 pounds of grain goes to
feed one pound of (cow) meat on the factory farms9thats 33 pounds of grain
per day per cow), I would reduce the number of livestock on farms by more
than half. Also, cows would have to go back to eating grass and hay rather than
grain and chicken litter. Cows would go back to the natural way of being raised
and not only would it be healthier but it will also taste better. I would also do
this for dairy cows, pigs, and chickens. The grain that is used to feed life stock
which is responsible for health issues in America and the world would be used
to help feed the world. The profit that we make on meat production is nothing
compared to what we could be doing for the world. By reducing the power of
profit over the well being of others the world could be a much better place.