Understanding the Link Between Food Habits & Global Hunger
As the world’s population approaches eight billion people, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the choices that we make as a global society are producing serious consequences for our environmental and collective well-being. Food security, in particular, has been seriously impacted in recent years. As populations grow and as food habits change, greater numbers of people around the world appear to be facing extreme food shortages.
As experts in USDA financing and ag land loans, we hear a lot of discussion around these concerns. In this article, we’ll discuss how eating habits are affecting rates of hunger around the world.
Eating Habits and Hunger: What’s the Connection?
Countries around the world are continuing to develop, which means that their growing populations require an affordable and sustainable food source. For many of these developing countries, an increased reliance on cheap, processed, and convenient meals – fast food, in other words – appears to provide the simplest and most effective solution.
This trend, in turn, is producing a greater demand for meat and dairy products, which place a far greater strain on the environment than crops or organic farms. Take beef production, for example. It requires a lot of feed – usually soya – to raise cattle on industrial farms. To meet the rising demand for beef, farmers in countries like Brazil have been clearing huge swathes of vital rainforest in order to plant ever-greater quantities of soya.
The Bottom Line
To summarize: developing countries are consuming larger quantities of cheap meat products, which require huge amounts of feed to produce, which in turn need huge areas of land for cultivation. The result is a vicious cycle of increasing populations, unsustainable farming practices, and degradation of natural resources.
What Can Be Done?
It isn’t clear when (or if) the cycle will end, which means that it’s important to take action now to protect our food security. Starting a small farm through USDA financing or with the help of a hobby farm loan can be a great first step!
Protect Your Future Today with USDA Financing
At MSF Agriculture, we specialize in providing farmers and agricultural enthusiasts with the tools that they’ll need to secure USDA financing for their personal or commercial farms. Reach out to one of our loan officers today to get started!