Duong Ly

Anth 215

Food Crisis

Food crisis has always been one of the major problems in many places around the world. It is one of the most debating topics of global health. There have been six major food crises in modern history, killing millions of people. The six of them are Soviet famine of 1932–1933, Great Chinese famine, Niger food crisis, world food price crisis, Sahel famine, East African drought. In the past, food crisis only affects Third world countries. However, recently it has taken a new path. According to the UN report, the world is now being endangered by a great famine because of its low food reserves.

In 2012, natural disasters, heat waves and drought severely damaged many corn and grain fields in the United States. Condition of harvested corns dropped significantly comparing to last year. The condition this year was rate at 31 percent good to excellent while last year it was rated at 77 percent. That data of corns alone showed a huge decrease in quality of the harvested corns. In fact, the UN published a report showing that failing harvests in the US, Ukraine, and other countries have caused the reserved food bank to drop to their lowest since 1974. It also published a statement saying that if there are any more natural disasters in the United States or other food-exporting countries, it will trigger a major food crisis all around the world. The food reserves have never been this low before; the world is truly being endangered by a hunger crisis. In the past six years, the food consumption has increased at a very fast rate while the amount of food grown hasn’t increased that much. The result was our food production couldn’t catch up with the amount of consumption. It depleted the food reserves, causing it to drop from an average of 107 days of consumption 10 years ago to under 74 days today, which was barely more than 2 months. In the past, the food reserves served as a backup source of food in case of natural disasters occur. However, since the food reserves have dropped so low, it can barely sustain the world population. Not only the reserved food source ran low, the price of food began to skyrocket. Scorching heat and severe drought drove the price of food and grocery to an extremely high price. According to a report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the food price rose by 1.4% again in September after remain steady for two months. The price of dairy product claimed the highest price increase record with an increase of 7 percent in the last month. One of the major concerns of the agency was that an increase in food price could set off riots in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The current food price hasn’t reached the major food crisis in the past, but it is only 13 percent below the alarming level. Food crisis is a global health issue because it affects everyone around the world. If the food reserves are depleted, we will not have room to act when an unexpected natural disaster hit us. This is a serious problem considering severe weathers happened more and more in many countries in recent years, and the food consumption still continues to rise steadily. It is no longer a problem of the third world countries because the developed countries will be affected if the food reserves are depleted. It calls upon an effort to replenish the food reserves and find new strategies to allow food production meet the level of its consumption.

The article that used to investigate the food crisis problem is “The Impact of the Economic Crisis and the US Embargo on Health in Cuba” (Garfield, 1997). It is well known that there is always tension between the United States and Cuba. In the past, the tension was even greater that the United States imposed an embargo against Cuba which was estimated as the longest embargo in history. The embargo was made in 1961 after the 1959 revolution happened in Cuba. However, the embargo showed no negative effect to Cuba during the first three decades as Cuba was allowed to trade with the Soviet Union freely. In fact, it was shown in the article that 90 percent of Cuban international trade was with the Soviet Union. Its economy grew by a total of 2 percents from 1969 to 1975 and by 4 percents from 1975 to 1989. However, it didn’t last long till the breakup of the Soviet Union occurred in 1989. It had a great impact on the economy of Cuba because Cuba traded exclusively with the Soviet Union. From 1989 to 1993, the Soviet exports to Cuba decreased by 70 percents and the value of imported goods dropped from 8 billion to 1.7 billion. Around that time, the US also strengthened the embargo by passing Cuban Democracy Act which prohibited any All US subsidiary trade, including trade in food and medicines. It also discouraged ships from visiting Cuba by refusing to let it dock at United States ports if they had visited Cuba in the last 6 months. It effectively increased the cost of shipping to Cuba by 10 percents. The US embassy also threatened non US firms that traded with Cuba. Those actions ultimately created a blockage in Cuban’s international trade. The impact of the embargo became severe as Cuba was unable to find countries willing to trade with it. The former Soviet Union disbanded so there were no other countries helping Cuba. The result was a huge shortage of food and malnutrition in Cuba. Shortage of calorie, proteins and micronutrients threatened Cuban citizens, especially women, children, and elders. Poor nutrition and low sanitary condition led to tuberculosis from 1990 to 1994. To make the matter worse, the lack of imported fats from the Soviet Union led to another shortage in soap products. It directly caused the poor sanitation in the country which in turn caused widespread of pediculosis and scabies. Infant and maternal mortality began to rise because of infectious diseases and malnutrition. Social disruption became more common due to the declining in public transportation.  The Cuban government came up with some strategies to deal with the problem like rationing food and other scare resources, promoting riding bicycle instead of cars helped reducing the negative effect of embargo. However, food crisis in Cuba still threatened millions of people as the problem remained unsolved.

Medical anthropology would frame this problem as a problem caused by an external force. In this case, the food crisis in Cuba was caused by embargo imposed by the United States. The embargo effectively not only blocks all the trades between Cuba with the United States, but it also discourages trading between Cuba with other countries. Cuba is a small country and it is unable to produce enough food for its citizens. It has to rely on food imports from other countries.

In class, we learn about how to approach the global health problems in a medical anthropology perspective. In order to solve the Cuban food crisis, it requires a social change. The social change needed in this case is a change in conflict and military power. It is clear that the cause of the food crisis originates in the political conflict between the United States and Cuba during the cold war. To be more precise, the political conflict was between the United States and the Soviet Union, between the capitalist world and the communist world. At that time, the strategy employed by the United States to deal with the spread of communism was to do whatever it takes to stop other countries in the world from becoming communist. That was the reason why the United States decided to make an effort to stop the economic growth of Cuba by imposing an embargo on it. However, the embargo not only reduced Cuban economic growth but it also caused a major food crisis in that country for more than three decades. The food crisis devastated the countries by killing thousands of people and giving the opportunity for other global health problems to arise. From a medical anthropology perspective, I can tell that the negative impact was partly due to the lack of medical programs in Cuba. Poor people couldn’t afford to get adequate medical assistant, and the government didn’t come up with a universal healthcare for them. The unequal access to health services is the root of the problem. If the Cuban government changed their health services, gave everyone an equal access to health care, the food crisis would not have damaged the country that severely.

My understanding of the medical anthropology concepts changed after applying them to your selected problem. Before reading this article, I view global health problems as problems caused by political conflicts, military power, and other external factors. But after taking a closer look at the problem, it is clear that there is also “internal factors” which is how the victims deal with global health problems. In this case, the Cuban government could have come up with strategies that allow its citizens to have access to free public health. It could prevent epidemic and food crisis or at least slow down and reduce the negative impacts. Because global health problems usually involve with political conflicts and military power, it is very hard to prevent them. But it is possible to reduce their negative impacts by employing effective strategies. One of the effective strategies is to provide equal access to health services for everyone.

The definition of food crisis from a medical anthropological perspective re-shapes what needs to be done to address it. In order to stop the food crisis, we need to make preparation. Many countries waste their resources on cultivating crops that can produce biofuels just because it is more profitable. At the current low food reserves, it is better to use their lands and resources to produce food rather than biofuels. Some countries also neglect their agriculture, and it contributes to the decrease in food reserves. The prices of food continue to increase steadily over time because the food production hasn’t met the consumption. If this trend continues, a major food shortage will occur in the near future. It is urgent that the governments of countries around the world act now to prevent future food crisis.

In conclusion, what happen in Cuba should be a lesson that we could learn from. The food crisis happened because of political conflicts between the two countries. It is a common cause for many problems in the world. The Cuban government didn’t act in time to prevent negative impacts, letting the food crisis damaging the country for almost four decades. By looking at the problem in a medical anthropology perspective, we can understand more about the problem and come up with effective solutions for it.

Work Cite

"Farmers begin harvesting drought-damaged fields - Kearney Hub: Local News." Kearney Hub: At the Center of Nebraska life since 1888.. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. <http://www.kearneyhub.com/news/local/farmers-begin-harvesting-drought-damaged-fields/article_a832ad82-f13e-11e1-8759-0019bb2963f4.html>.

"Global Food Prices on the Rise, U.N. Says - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/world/global-food-prices-on-the-rise-united-nations-says.html>.

R Garfield and S Santana.  The impact of the economic crisis and the US embargo on health in Cuba. American Journal of Public Health January 1997: Vol. 87, No. 1, pp. 15-20.

doi: 10.2105/AJPH.87.1.15

Vidal, John. " UN warns of looming worldwide food crisis in 2013 | Global development | The Observer ." Latest US news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | guardiannews.com | The Guardian . N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/oct/14/un-global-food-crisis-warning>.