Water and Food Security

Water ~ the key of life

In fact, almost 70 percent of the earth is occupied by water. But, around 0.7 percent of water can only be used by us because most of the water comes from the sea which is unsuitable for human activities. Water plays an imperative role in our life.  We use water to carry out daily routines such as washing clothes and cooking food. Thus, we all depend on water.

How does water lead to food security?                                           

Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, food security exists when all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs for an active and healthy life. 

Water is mainly used to produce our daily food. In agriculture, farmers around the world need large amounts of water to grow their crops. For examples, paddy, corns and wheats. These crops need to absorb water to grow. Water is essential for crops in order to carry out photosynthesis to make their own food to sustain their growth.

Water is also needed to rear livestock. Livestock like humans need to consume water. Livestock such as chicken intake variety of mineral salts from water to keep them healthy. These crops and livestock become our daily food. Therefore, water is necessary to ensure our continuous food supplement.

What are the factors that cause food insecurity?                             

Food insecurity exists when people cannot obtain enough food to sustain their life. There are numerous factors as shown as below. 

@1: Global warming which causes climate  change        

• Droughts

Droughts lead to water scarcity. Nowadays, droughts may occur more frequently. If you visit countries where there are droughts, you will see the land become extremely dry until it cracks. There are also many animal carcasses scatter over the land. This is because of water scarcity. Farmers in these countries cannot plant their crops and rear their livestock without sufficient amount of water.  

 

• Floods

The heat that is trapped by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane melts the polar ice caps at the North and South poles. Therefore, the sea level rises. Subsequently, floods occur easily at low lying areas. Crops and livestock will eventually die because when they are submerged in flood. So, farmers cannot harvest their crops and livestock. This has decreased food production.

    @2: Deforestation                                                          

The number of the forests at the Earth decreases day by day. We cut down our precious forests to carry out commercial development. We do not realise that the forests are ''spongy spans'' that are able to store water. The excess water will flow continuously into the rivers from the forests. So, there are no rivers when there are no forests. As a consequence, we lose our main water source, rivers.


Besides, forests are important to the Earth because they are ''green lungs'' which able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to oxygen. Carbon dioxide gas cannot be reduced efficiently because of decreasing in number of the forests. This is also the factor of global warming.

    @3: Water Pollution                                                      

Water pollution is caused by irresponsible human activities. They contaminate water by releasing radioactive waste products, faeces of poultry or chemical substances into the water sources. As a result, the quality of water becomes bad. Most aquatic organisms cannot thrive in water which is full with pollutants. These substances can jeopardize their health. In addition, they may encounter extinction as their roe cannot hatch without a conducive environment. Thus, we will lose our protein food source. 

What are the impacts of food insecurity?                                     

In some countries like Africa, the citizens starve due to lack of food. There is malnutrition in their bodies when they do not obtain sufficient nutrients to keep them healthy. 

As a consequence, they suffer from various types of diseases. For example, Malaria. They also eventually die as their bodies do not have a strong immune system to fight against these diseases. 

Besides, food price on the world increases drastically. The poor are not able to buy such expensive food.

Ways to curb food insecurity                                             

One of the ways is seed hunting. What is seed hunting? Why do we need seed hunting? Many of us have these questions in our mind. 

Dr Ken Street,  a seed hunter. 

Seed hunting is an activity of finding traditional and wild plant seeds around the world. Seed hunting closely relates to biotechnology. There are many people had put their tireless effort on finding seeds such as Dr Ken Street, an Australian scientist. 


The purpose of finding seeds is to collect hardy species which may have characteristics that can grow in extreme condition. For example, if they get a drought tolerance gene from a seed, they can induce it into a plant to create a drought tolerance plant. Therefore, seed hunting can create crop plants which are able to survive and withstand climate changes. 

Secondly, every of us has a responsibility to solve food security. We can start at our home such as:

• Reduce eating meat product as lots of greenhouse gases are released in the production of meat products.

• Practice healthy diet. Consume more vegetables.

• Eat less water-intensive products.

• Do not waste water. 

• Do not waste any food. Please appreciate our food.

Thirdly, the leaders from every country must cooperate to solve this problem. They must agree to reduce emission of greenhouse gases. They also need to provide financial help for the poor countries. As a result, all of humans on the Earth can have food eat every day.

In a conclusion, we take appropriate actions in order to make sure our water sources are continuous and clean. So that, we have water to make our food.

'' Food Makes Happy Life ''