Food Security In Ethiopia

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CHAPTER TWO
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Increases in food production, per hectare of land, have not kept pace with increases in population, and the planet has virtually no more arable land or fresh water to spare. As a result, per-capita cropland has fallen by more than half since 1960, and per-capita production of grains, the basic food, has been falling worldwide for 20 years (Pimental and Wilson, 2004)
Today, one of the world’s greatest challenge is the exploding population and combating poverty and hunger. Each day, more and more people are added to the world populace and this makes it more and more difficult to feed them. The problem is worsened as natural resources- fresh water, quality land, energy, minerals and habitats of plants and animals are …show more content…

11 percent of the land area are used as cropland, 27 percent for pastureland, 32 percent as forested land, 9 percent as urban lands and the remaining 21 percent is unsuitable for crops, pasture, and/or forests because the soil is too infertile to support crop production or the climatic conditions in these areas are unfavourable for agricultural use. The land supplies greater portion of food consumed by humans. Therefore, with land being fixed in supply, its depletion poses more danger to the human race.
Food security is a condition related to the supply of food, and individuals ' access to it. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. Food insecurity has been a problem since the dawn of humanity. This is because food is a basic necessity of man and there have been those who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), food security is built on four pillars:
• Food availability- food must be available at all times in sufficient …show more content…

Food insecurity has gained so much ground in recent times because of the global population growth. Factors such as; rising prices, drought and other climate disasters, arable land shortages, and increasing demand threatens the availability of food.
The world’s population projected to reach 9.6 billion in 2050. Africa’s population is projected to increase by 1.3 billion people by the middle of this century despite the ravages of hunger, disease, and civil conflict. Therefore in other to keep up with the rising demand of the growing population (not to improve the current situation), food production must increase by 70 percent by 2050 according to FAO.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been noted to have the highest proportion of undernourished people in any region. Thus one in four are chronically hungry which reflects that increasing population growth leads to the worsening of the food security problem. The number of hungry people on the African continent continues to

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