Imaad Dada

1) I picked this topic over other topics due to the fact that I have always
wondered why there is so much world hunger and I have also wondered who
actually pays for the extremely consuming diet of nations such as America. I
have had some background knowledge about this subject because we slightly
covered it in an economics class in my high school. I learned about the effect
of price changes in foods but I didnt learn it according to supply and demand
perspectives. After learning more about supply and demand curves, I think
about the effects of the change in prices of certain foods in a more
economically plausible manner.
2) A. the main causes of the global food crisis are the fact that when demand
exceeds supply, only the ones who can afford it are able to get certain foods.
This is due to the fact that if there is no increase in supply while there is an
increase in demand, suppliers will sell their entire product for the most
money they can. Also, if some supply such as corn, is used for other manners
such as oil, supply lowers. This interaction of a lower supply and a larger
demand makes it difficult for poor nations to afford enough food. I think
mainly the increase in demand is causing a large effect in the price of foods
due to the fact that rich nations such as the U.S demand an excess amount of
food merely because they can afford more of it!
b. The main argument in the US farm and trade policies harming poor people
deal with the fact that the U.S pushes a worldwide trade for food and
sometimes some nations cant keep up with it. On the opposing side
however, this global food trade enables nations to produce what is more in
demand and increase the overall output since each nation sort of would
specialize in certain items that are more in demand, helping their economies.
I dont really agree with the second aspect of this argument at all. I am
leaning more towards the first side of the argument because some
developing nations are being malnourished due to the fact that they cant
keep up with the price rises of food that are created when nations such as the
U.S demand more food than there is to supply, and are willing to pay more for
it.
c. The main argument in whether or not US food aid policies harm people in
developing nations has two perspectives. One perspective says that US food
aid policies do harm people in developing nations due to the fact that those
people must pay more for food such as corn since an increased demand (such
as using corn for oil) raises the price of corn. Even if its a small price change,
it can have a huge impact on developing nations. On the contrary side, US
food policies dont harm developing nations because an increased price
makes suppliers want to supply more because they will be making more
money, allowing more food to be produced. I agree with certain aspects on
both sides. I believe that yes the price will be raised, but the overall supply
will too.
d. I think that the prices of food will fluctuate due to the fact that the supply
and demand will both fluctuate until an equilibrium price is met. I think that if

Imaad Dada
the price rises too high, supply will exceed demand and I think if prices drop
too much, demand will exceed supply. This will cause a constant fluctuation
causing the price to constantly fluctuate. I think some solutions to the global
food crisis are to use more land for food and encourage local farming. This
way the increase in supply will catch up with the increase in demand. I think
the main problem is that the increase in demand is growing faster than the
increase in supply.
e. The main argument in the debate on the impact of US ethanol on US food
prices is raising the debate on using corn to produce food. One side debates
that it is wise to use a good amount of corn on fuel because it makes fuel
cheaper since there is more of a supply due to using corn in it. Overall, this
saves U.S citizens more because if they were buying food products such as
beef (requiring corn), they would only need to spend a little more money. This
amount spent would be less than the extra amount of money they would
need to spend on fuel if corn wasnt used in it. The other argument states
that if too much corn is used for fuel, less of the supply will be used for food,
lowering the amount of food supply. I agree with each argument but I agree
more with the second argument due to the fact that I think people will be
able to adapt more to higher fuel prices (maybe by driving less) rather than
giving up food. Food is a necessity. While fuel is also more or less a necessity,
people can adapt more easily if they are pressured to.
3) a) I used the google scholar search engine. I used this because it had a
wide branch of articles relating the food crisis to economics. A lot of the
articles talked about Africa. The articles showed that Africa is a prime victim
of the food crisis due to several factors. The articles were from reliable
sources (Public health and Elsevier). Before reading them I made sure these
sources were reliable and I got good feedback when I did some research on
them. The articles I found had several graphs as well as many backed up
facts.
b) The exact search I did on Google scholar was economics food crisis. I used
these words because every article that came up would deal with the food
crisis in an economical perspective. This was an ideal search because there
was a wide variety of perspectives on several economical factors dealing with
the food prices as discussed later in this assignment. Although economics
food crisis doesnt seem like a good search, I had a feeling that if I searched
something less vague such as economical perspective of the food crisis I
would have gotten biased arguments rather than different perspectives.
4) Article 1 a) The first articles name was Rethinking the global food crisis:
The role of trade shocks. The authors name was Derek Headey. He seems
quite credible due to the fact that he is part of the International Food Policy
Research Institute. He seems like he researched everything that he talked
about because he gives backed-up facts. The publisher is Elsevier which also
seems like a reliable publisher. I researched the publisher and it seemed fairly
well known.

Imaad Dada
b) This article seems to be well balanced rather than biased. This is due to
the fact that although it shows that the rise in prices of some foods is bad for
developing nations, it also shows that this is a push for developing
countries to work harder and innovate to keep up with nations such as the
US. Although it is in fact balanced, it is mostly arguing on the side that the
rise in prices is bad for some nations due to the fact that nations such as the
US demand more than they actually need. An example of this is that most
citizens eat more than the necessary amount while some poor people in
developed nations dont even have food for a single day.
Article 2 a) The second articles name was New variant famine: AIDS and
food crisis in southern Africa and the authors name were Alex de Waal and
Alan Whiteside. Although not much information was given about the authors,
they presented great information and were from reliable organizations. The
publishing group was the Lancet publishing group. I also researched this
publishing group and they were well known and reliable in terms of
economics.
5) Article 1) Article one talked about the main visible perspective on the food
crisis. This was that mainly the poor nations fell victim to the food crisis. This
was due to the fact that since countries such as the US demanded more food,
while supplied relatively stayed the same, the US was taking most of the food
market since they were able to pay for an excess amount of food in the
limited food supply. This made it near impossible for developing nations to
buy enough food that they needed due to the fact that the US was able to
pay for virtually as much food as they wanted.
Article 2) Article two talked more about the involvement of other nations in a
globalized economy. It showed more of a side cause of the food crisis. It
talked about how Africas HIV crisis made it difficult for Africa to be capable of
generating enough labor to make food for them. They had a lack of labor and
most of the labor was used to make exports since Africa was tied in the
worlds economy. They spent more labor on exports than they did on food for
themselves which is also an effect of the food crisis. Since their whole
economy blends in with more developed nations and they are unable to
produce enough labor to catch up, Africa has a hard time providing for its own
citizens.
6) I learned a lot from this research assignment. I learned that economics has
many different perspectives and there isnt only one right perspective. There
can be agreeable viewpoints even in opposing arguments. I learned that
economics is all based on perspective. I learned that the world of economics
is a dog eat dog world and it can be very aggressive. I also learned how many
small factors lead to larger and larger factors in economics (such as less labor
being equivalent of less output as mentioned earlier). I definitely learned to
be open to different ideas than my own because many arguments in this
research assignment seemed to be correct until I learned about the opposing
perspective.

Imaad Dada
7)
Headey, D. (2010). Rethinking the global food crisis: The role of trade shocks.Elsevier, 136-146.
Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://personal.stthomas.edu/wisn1021/Econ342
Waal, A., & Whiteside, A. (2003). New variant famine: AIDS and food crisis in southern
Africa. Public Health, 362, 1234-1236. Retrieved November 2, 2014, from
http://www.supportunhcr.org/4073ce2f4.pdf