Ziyaad Mahomed (ISRA Research Management Centre, 2022)
Humans are living in trying times, brought on mostly by their own hands. Increasing climate-related devastation, strange pandemics (e.g., Zika, Ebola, COVID-19 and Monkeypox), and wars that mostly support weapons-producing nations and the corporate/political elite have led to a widening of economic disparity and human suffering. Probably the most seriousof humanity's unbridled obsessions for more is food. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that more than 30 per cent of food is wasted in the United States and Europe alone. But has production met increasing consumption patterns? Some wealthy nations like the USA and China have increased crop yields. However, medium- to long-term yields are on the decline, affecting output and food price and severely impacting food security and poverty in developing nations. A recent study by Hasegawa et al. (2021) found that Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are most at risk of hunger over the next 30 years, resulting from uncertainties in extreme climate impact. Nevertheless, most reports will have us believe that the percentage of poverty and hunger has decreased.
