HOMEWORK

NAME: ERIKA ZAVALA ALBÁN

EXCESSIVE CONSUMPTION OF FOOD, A GLOBAL PROBLEM

Introduction

My talk is concerned about the impact of overpopulation in the increased consumption of food
and also of its waste. The current world population is approximately 6,000 million people. The
reasons for this increase are mainly linked to an improvement in basic sanitary and food
conditions; Progress in the field of medicine such as the discovery of antibiotics and vaccines
were decisive for the increase of life expectancy, reproduction conditions and especially for the
decrease of the infant mortality rate. The birth and survival rate greatly exceeded the death rate,
and substantially improved life prospects.

On the negative side, overpopulation increased in parallel the "human consumption" in terms
of energy, food and in general of products and services, which also implies a greater negative
impact on the environment, product of human activities in all sectors: industrial, energy,
agricultural and waste production.

How does the negative environmental impact cause food to be wasted?

The Earth currently houses some 600,000 mega tonnes of biomass destined for the production
of food of natural origin, but this amount is decreasing as the population increases. Much of the
natural food offered by many species is destroyed in order to obtain wood and other elements
and thus generate economic production.

This is how the agricultural sector has been declining in the last decades since, by affecting the
habitat through consumption, the fertility of the land is also altered for sowing and harvesting.
The acid rains that are the product of the precipitation of evaporated chemical products that
are generated by the industries, affect the forests irreversibly damaging them. Transferred in
real terms, the agricultural products that are generated are also wasted unnecessarily.

In the livestock sector, although it is true that there are millions of hatcheries of different species
of birds and mammals fit for human consumption, it has also been affected by the simple fact
of the greater demand for food by the soblepoblación, which has led to use chemical and
hormonal means to increase the production of livestock, whose consequences for the livestock
themselves are: the decrease in the quality of livestock, and the death of livestock due to
susceptibility to diseases such as influenza.

Finally, there is the chemical industry that is responsible for generating semi-artificial or artificial
foods, such as sausages, preservatives for grains and fish, canned foods, etc. This generates
serious health problems if consumed in the long term, and if the natural resources are
consumed, that will be our only source of food.

Conclusion

The negative impact generated by the current production-consumption system has not been
handled in the best way in recent decades, which is why socio-economic models and social
policies must be generated and implemented to create working, health and education
conditions that allow for expectations of progress, in terms of well-being, at the individual and
family level.

And to finish maybe a proposal for the future would be to design farms in the sky. Using the
latest advances in hydroponics and zero-gravity biology, it may be possible to build networks of
orbital farms and ranches large enough to feed the entire population, eliminating global biomass
consumption, and even survive on the surface of a world without water or life.