Essay/Term paper: The coming food crisis

Essay, term paper, research paper:  History

China has big problem with its food production and providing it for its people. People have resorted to rice husks, hemp leaves, grass soup, toads, rats, body lice, and even their own dead. Many moves toward industrialization have put China behind in its production of food for its people. These moves toward industrialization have taken farmers off their fields and into industrial factories. The result is cropland disappearing and water becoming scarce in some areas. China"s huge population increases by about 15 million each year, even with one child per family. China"s booming economy has made some people wealthy enough to pay off government restrictions of one child per family.



China has been trying to solve this problem in many ways. It has put a restriction on the number of children a family can have, which is one. This for some families who are wealthy enough isn"t a problem. China has also looked to importing food, but this has had a dramatic effect on the world"s trade prices. If China continues to import food the international prices will skyrocket resulting in developing countries being unable to import food. In addition to importing food China has also been researching and developing so called "super rice". This "super rice" has an increased amount of seeds on it when it matures. Thus increasing food production. The "super rice" is supposed to increase production by some 20 percent.



If China"s problem keeps increasing and China can"t figure out a way to support itself they may have to turn to importing. This can have a dramatic effect on the rest of world. China may begin importing a lot of its food, which can drive up trade prices. The result is developing countries won"t be able to import food due to lacking of funds. Also if China keeps developing its "super rice" this may help the rest of the world by being able to increase production by 20 - 25 percent. This is a very interesting thing for many countries especially for those countries that are still young and could use the increase in production.



There are a lot of things that I have learned from this article. I now know that some of China"s people have been resorting to eating their own dead to survive, due to food shortages. I also know that a communist government is a corrupt government and probably always will be. I also know something about the so-called "super rice" that China has developed and that it could really be helpful to other countries that could use food. I didn"t know that China"s population increases by 15 million each year. That is a lot and I can understand why they are having trouble with providing food.