Food insecurity can be defined as the interruption of eating patterns or food intake because of money's unavailability alongside other resources. The United States was significantly affected by food insecurity in 2014, where about 17 million Americans were food insecure, at least once in the period. Food insecurity can either be temporal or long-term, depending on the causing factors. Some of the commonly identified factors that influence food insecurity are employment, income levels, disabilities, and ethnicity. In most instances, the risks of food insecurity increase when money in households used to purchase food reduces or is unavailable ( Becker et al., 2017 ). Therefore, high global unemployment rates have been identified as a significant factor behind food insecurity among families. Discrimination in employment and workplaces resulting from racial differences has contributed to more whites getting well-paying jobs than other racial groups like Asians and African Americans. Therefore, racial differences can be identified as a factor behind less income in some households, resulting in food insecurity.
Role of Population Growth in Food Security
It is right to conclude that about one person in five globally has no access to enough food to lead an active and healthy life. The problem exists despite the existence of enough food to feed the entire world's population. Specific food commodities prices, agricultural policies, and economic development are the major factors that impact food security, alongside demographic trends. Population growth automatically drives up food demand, which leads to the overexploitation of food and water. For countries with inadequate food production technology, population growth forces demand to surpass supply, resulting in food insecurity. A high population means an increased labor source, although the number of people overpowers the available resources leading to depletion. For instance, population growth exerts pressure on the healthcare provision industry, which affects the quality of provided healthcare services ( Omondi, Oluoch‐Kosura & Jirström, 2017 ). In such a state, most population members find themselves in a poor state of health to provide their services in production. Therefore, the number of consumers exceeds the number of those working to produce, leading to a low food supply, hence food insecurity.
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Section II. Technology that Can Reduce Hunger and Improve Food Security
Technologies that enable farmers to stay updated with the climatic conditions are essential to promote excellent harvests. One of the significant factors behind food insecurity is poor harvests due to crop destruction with heavy, little rains or famine. Farmers make substantial investments in their crops, where they spend a lot on planting, farming, fertilizing, and harvesting, after which they encounter losses. Before global warming, climatic conditions and seasons could easily be predicted, making it easier for farmers to plant and gain heavy harvests. However, the changes in weather conditions and seasons have made it impossible to identify the proper farming pattern with appropriate outcomes ( Kumar & Kalita, 2017 ). Therefore, weather forecasting technology is a useful invention that can help improve food security and reduce hunger if used correctly. The technology will help deal with climate change as a factor behind food insecurity.
Among the identified factors behind food insecurity is poor coordination and link-up between food producers, suppliers, and consumers. On some occasions, agricultural produce cannot reach the consumers' market since the supply-link is unavailable. Ready and efficient markets can also be available alongside effective supply channels with a limited source of agricultural produce. Therefore, a platform to identify supply and demand sources for suppliers to use the right channels and ensure food products reach consumers on time will help solve the food insecurity problem. Creation of an online platform where producers, suppliers, and consumers of food products connect can be an effective technology to enable efficient food flow to all the required sectors ( Hasegawa et al., 2018 ). The technology will help solve the problem of poor coordination within the supply of food, which will reduce hunger and improve food security.
Section III. Specific Factors in Chosen Developing Countries
Rising food demands, increase in food prices, and failing harvests due to land overuse are identified above as factors related to population growth and poverty, which lead to food insecurity. The recognized developing nations, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, face the same effect because of the closeness in their geographical locations. For status, the high population growth rate has been a problem in the countries for years. The problem not only affects food security but also impacts other sectors of operation in the countries ( Gundersen et al., 2018 ). For instance, overpopulation has led to a strain in the countries' medical sectors, contributing to the provision of low-quality care. The ratio of the available healthcare professionals does not match the number of patients, forcing care providers to handle more than the manageable number of patients.
Rising food demand is a problem that arises in the countries named earlier as a result of overpopulation. When demands become higher than the supply, products are automatically depleted. Therefore, the excess demand makes it possible to overpower production hence the occurrence of food insecurity. An increase in demand for a product also raises its value, thus a price increase. Therefore, scarcity of food due to high populations in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia leads to increased prices of the little food available, which causes food insecurity. Affordability of food products also becomes problematic with the growth in population since other issues such as unemployment, which affect household income emerge. As stated above, overuse of limited resources automatically results in their depletion ( Hasegawa et al., 2018 ). Therefore, overpopulation leads to exhaustion of land because of increased farming rates to produce enough food that can feed the population. Agricultural produce automatically reduces because of the reduction in the land's quality and fertility, which results in food insecurity.
In conclusion, food insecurity is one of the major issues affecting developing nations and the whole world. Among the significant factors that have contributed to global food insecurity is population growth. As discussed above, overpopulation exerts pressure on the available food products, leading to depletion and causes food insecurity. Given that the problem has already been identified, food insecurity problems can be limited by limiting population growth by advising individuals to try out family planning. The population can also be managed by countries coming up with strict laws about the maximum number of children a family should have. Given that the above-discussed countries' populations are already high, other measures like using advanced technology in farming could be applied. As discussed above, technology to enable proper weather prediction and communication between producers of food producers, suppliers, and consumers will be a positive step towards making more food available to promote food security.
References
Becker, C. B., Middlemass, K., Taylor, B., Johnson, C., & Gomez, F. (2017). Food insecurity and eating disorder pathology. International Journal of eating disorders , 50 (9), 1031-1040.
Gundersen, C., Tarasuk, V., Cheng, J., De Oliveira, C., & Kurdyak, P. (2018). Food insecurity status and mortality among adults in Ontario, Canada. PloS one , 13 (8), e0202642.
Hasegawa, T., Fujimori, S., Havlík, P., Valin, H., Bodirsky, B. L., Doelman, J. C., ... & Mason-D’Croz, D. (2018). Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy. Nature Climate Change , 8 (8), 699-703.
Kumar, D., & Kalita, P. (2017). Reducing postharvest losses during storage of grain crops to strengthen food security in developing countries. Foods , 6 (1), 8.
Omondi, S. O., Oluoch‐Kosura, W., & Jirström, M. (2017). The role of urban‐based agriculture on food security: Kenyan case studies. Geographical research , 55 (2), 231-241.
