What does agriculture have to do with world hunger?

Question

And why is it that in places such as NY people are indifferent to agriculture?

Answer 1

because we are alienated from agriculture becoz all we know beef as is a red slab from the supermarket

Answer 2

I am a small farmer.  My husband and I live/own/work on a permaculture farm in the high mountain desert area of Idaho.  We are in the very heart of potato country.

Your question is rather open ended.  I'm going to answer your second question first.

"And why is it that in places such as NY people are indifferent to agriculture?"

Mostly it it because the average American is now THREE generations removed from agriculture.  It's not just New York.  It's any town, where the major employers are not agricultural.  Frankly, people simply do not understand where, and how their food gets to them.  We raise and butcher our own meat right here on our farm.  All the time I hear from people, "Ewww, that's so gross, we only buy our meat at the grocery store."  (So I always wonder, how was that animal treated, and what did they feed, or inject that animal with, before it ended up on your dinner plate?  You don't know?  Ewww..that's so gross!)

Here are some questions I have asked people, and answers I have recieved.

What would you do if there was a massive crop failure in the U.S.?

"It wouldn't affect us, we buy our food at the grocery store."

"It wouldn't matter, because the grocery stores never run out of food."

"The Governement would take care of us."

What would you do, if the truckers go on strike, because of high fuel prices?

"How would that affect us?  The grocery stores never run out of food."

"My food comes from the grocery store, not a farm, so it would affect us."

I could go on and on with this list, but I'll stop there.  I'm always quiet amazed at the total disconect well educated, adult people have between where their food actually comes from (farms), and how it magically appears at the grocery store.

People are usually indifferent to things they do not percieve as directly effecting them.  They see no problem with a subdivision being built where a wheat field use to stand, because they buy their bread at the grocery store.  If you presented them with wheat as the whole grain, and some bulk yeast, they wouldn't have a clue how to grind their own flour, and bake their own bread.  No more so than they would know how to properly butcher and slaughter an animal.  With those things not DIRECTLY effecting them, they simply do not give a darn.  That goes for almost every single person (not just big cities who are not directly recieving their income from agriculture).

Now to your first question:

"What does agriculture have to do with world hunger? "

Well...everything is the simple answer.  Humans have over populated themselves.  Without agriculture of the mega big farms to support them, we would have massive famine.  

Desipte what the first poster to your question states, the U.S.A. is actually EXTREMELY generous.  Without the food we supply, many, many third world countries would have had near total collapse of their populations, due to war, famine, drought, massive crop failures ect.

There simply is not enough farmable land left for every family to go back to growing their own food.  Society, and the world is becomeing more, and more dependant on the mega big mono crop farms.

In many third world countries, each family still grows as very small garden.  It may not be enough to feed themselves entirely, but it does help feed their family.  The U.S.A. would actually be worse off than many of those third world countries if there was a massive crop failure, since people here simply do not know how to do even the simplest things, like plant and tend a garden.

Things like the G.M crops (genetically modified)  can also lead to worse problems.  In India, they gave them a cereal G.M. crop to farmers for free...it was supose to make their lives so much better, since the G.M. crop would produce more food for them (wheat I believe, but it could have been rice, memory fails me at the moment).  

The farmers planted it and indeed did harvest more food.  Problem was all their livestock began to starve and die during their winter.  You see the cereal crop they had been planting for hundreds, if not thousands of years grew on stalks that were over three feet tall.  That left over straw was then feed to their cattle (used for plowing) and their goats (used for milk and meat) and their sheep (used for fiber and meat) over the winter.  

The G.M. crop grew more grain, but on stalks that were only 12 inches tall.  Suddenly their was not enough left over food for the livestock.  So the next year, farmers are actually much worse off, as the cattle they had used for plowing had straved to death, or were too weak to pull a plow.  The other's like the sheep and goats of course also suffered.

Agriculture is a true art form, a balancing act.  You need to grow the right crops for the right climates, but you really need to look at the WHOLE picture.  What might be a godsend for some people, can cause misery and suffering for others.

This is why we balance our farm with permaculture.  We raise meat goats and meat rabbits (very environmentally friendly animals).  The goats and rabbits are fed alfalfa we grow.  In turn they produce manure which fertilizes the fields.  We also grow rapeseed (canola) and make our own biofuels to run our trucks and tractors.  The squeezings from the rapeseed are fed to the goats...more manure.

The rabbits have worm bins under their hutches.  That produces incredibly rich dressings for our garden.  

Everything on our farm balances the other thing.  We don't do a mono culture farm of just one thing.  It's simply not healthy, nor does it benifit nature.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 3

Drought - means no crops

Flooding - means no crops

forest fires - means no crops

No Crops - means those people in the affected area must rely on other regions for food

people in NYC don't grow the crops but there are famers in the state of NY - corn, soybeans, veggies, grapes, apples, peaches etc.

Answer 4

Growing of our food

Answer 5

agriculture deals with growing of crops,fishing and growing livestock and eventually to become food.

Answer 6

agriculture feeds the hungry

Answer 7

Well, most people around the world depend on agriculture and crops to feed their family and make money. A factor in agricultue, is global warming, because the higher the temp gets, in certain places, crops are failing, which is increasing world hunger..

I <33 u PRATYU!! lol

Answer 8

agriculture is basically the growing of our food. if an environment isnt suitable for growing a plentiful amt. of food for an area, the people there will starve.

Answer 9

Agriculture has everything to do with world hunger or the lack there of.  With the exception of fish caught from the sea and a small amount from hunters, all food comes from agriculture.  As far as people in NYC and other big cites, I don't think they are indifferent to agriculture, they just are not directly involved in it.  The same way that care about the people that made my computer and my television.  They producer them, did a good job and I am grateful they did, but I don't give them a lot of thought.  They are involved with their own thing and I am involved in mine.

Answer 10

Agriculture is the science of growing things.  It is most associated with growing fruits, vegetables, and grains.  It also includes livestock.  In many areas of the world people are limited by what will grow in their environment.  They are also limited by their knowledge or lack thereof of irrigation and fertilization methods and use of pesticides.

When you say NY I guess you mean the city and not the state.  There are very few if any agricultural jobs in NY city.  People don't relate to it.  As long as they can buy their food they don't care where it comes from or who grew it.

Answer 11

I think anyone raised in an urban area has little real understanding of agriculture, NY city isn't alone.  Upstate NY has beautiful farmland.

Developing crops that thrive in harsh conditions and short growing seasons, and increasing the harvest per plant has a huge effect on hunger.

Sadly, if we keep selling off farmland for development, we may find out very quickly about ag and world hunger right here.

Answer 12

Agriculture is feeding the world.  Like someone said before me, people in New York only care about business.  The people in big cities also think that us farmers are a bunch of hicks which is not the case.  When all of the cities expand, the more land is taken away to raise crops and animals.  Also to add to that, the big cities are causing global warming more than any other place causing weird weather for the farmers to do their jobs.  I think this is a big problem that needs to be addressed to the government or someone who could do something about this situation.  I hope I was a help to your question, have a nice day/night. . . whatever it is!

Answer 13

People in places like NYC are dislocated from Ag.  They feel hungry they go to the store, many have never seen any type of agriculture other than on some TV program or a Movie.  It is burdensome for some to even try and think that the chicken or hamburger they are eating was once a living breatheing creature, or the salad they are eating may have been picked by an underpaid and exploited illegal immagrant.  Even people closely associated with Ag sometimes lose sight of just how much we comsume comes directly from agriculture, even down to vises such as beer, wine, or cigarettes, we would have none of them without agriculture.

Answer 14

Simply put if everyone who is involved with agriculture quit what they were doing, everyone on the planet would starve to death.  They have everything to do with it.

Answer 15

the more food that's grown the more food there is to eat, the problem is that some countries *cough* the united states* cough, are very greedy and don't help as much as they could with world hunger. i think helping world hunger is bad for big business and new york is all about big business