World food prize( population and famine)
I presented a solution o the world food prize, stating how population growth affected poverty in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is a country located at the horn of Africa. It is known to have the longest Nile river. Its beautiful ancient hand made architecture has made tousrists flood into the country and has played an important role supporting the country's economy. Currently, there are 77 million people, with 21 percent of the population living in urban areas and 80 percent of its population living in rural areas. Every year, there will be almost two million people added to the country. Rural parts of the country's population have been dominant for the past few years. Not only has it increased but it has also caused many conflicts fulfilling its nations basic living needs, such as providing them enough food resources for their entire families. How does a country with a higher rate of poverty manage to increase their population? In Ethiopia, farmers rely on rain regularly, and people are still in the process of adopting different farming methods such as irrigation. To grow numerous crops, there should be sustained farming techniques. Not being able to modernize has led the country to experience famine.
Poverty and food stability.
A traditional typical diet in Ethiopia contains food that is high in fiber. People usually eat carbohydrates such as maize, teff and potatoes. Most of the population feeds on a food called Injera. Injera is made out of teff flour and it has a spongy texture.You can eat it with traditional sauce. For the past few years living in Ethiopia has been a difficult decision to Ethiopian diasporas. Birr is losing value everyday. Black marketing has drastically increased, which has made Ethiopian Birr currency to decrease . In 2004 teff was about 200 birr. But, as their population increased, food stability turned out to be rare, only rich people who can afford the cost can buy food supplies and the rest of the people ended up struggling in hunger. In 2012, one hundred kilogram of Teff was about 2,000 birr. The situation where food supplies are expensive and limited is ongoing. People still complain to their government to decrease the cost of living, and strong responses have not been heard from the government.
My solution sreve speficllay Ethiopia and reduce the povert rate in Ethiopia, which I presnted to Wold food prize through Global you institute program.
To cope with hunger issues in Ethiopia the first step to take is to determine the causes and the consequences of the hunger issue by analyzing Ethiopia's previous hunger crisis. In this case I will use the 1984 Ethiopian hunger crisis. A drastic change in population is the main cause of hunger in that time period. The land and the population are not in equilibrium. After we determine the cause of the Issue we can assess what comes as a consequence. Drastic change in populations can cause social and economic problems. For example, as their population grows their value to their currency will decrease because it has so many consumers, Many people have no jobs and aren't paying their taxes properly. Our next step after defining the causes and the consequences of hunger issues in Ethiopia, which in this case is the population, we have to transition to the next step. In this step we have to determine which region (kilil) has the highest population and determine the area of each region. By examining which region has the most population and identifying the area of each region, we will be able to tell what region we should focus on first.
I have definitely tried to do a deep-down research on the impacts on fmiane on Ethiopia. My research is shown below.
As the population increases in Ethiopia, many students across the country graduate in a place where there are no job opportunities. In 2017 the Ethiopian News reported that there were 150,000 graduates and only 2.08 percent of them were hired straight out of college. As a result, Ethiopia gets into an unemployment economic crisis. The unemployment rate will have many consequences including increasing the refugee rate (Youth Unemployment Ethiopia Apr. 2021).Young adults flee their country to have a better life, wanting a stable education and job opportunities. According to UNHCR there were 56,000 Ethiopian refugees fleeing their country. Food insecurities in Ethiopia come along with environmental issues.The majority of Ethiopia’s population lives in rural areas, and people living in rural areas are exposed to hunger more than those living in urbanized areas. This part of the society conducts their everyday lives mainly by selling out livestocks. As their population increases, more carbon dioxide is getting into the air, and as a result their air becomes polluted. Polluted air will create droughty land. Farmers attempted to grow a seed on their land, and it was nearly impossible.
- Taking action to combat climate change and its impacts (Sustainability)
- Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in at least one community, which is poised for further growth
Environmental problems have caused the population to experience famine at different times. In 1984, poverty crisis dominated rural parts of Ethiopia. This unexpected crisis killed over a million people. Families' lifestyle during that time was sustained until the crisis occurred. Some parts of their regions such as Tigray, Wello got into an economic crisis. Cutting down the forest and disrupting the environment caused them to experience a humanitarian food crisis. In the 1900s many countries around the world were in the competition to make strong militaries which in later times led to World War I. Instead of making strategies to get Ethiopia out of the crises, he focuses more on building a strong military. As a result of his poor political strategy, he was called a “terrorist”. Since then, he has left the country .
Food insecurities in Ethiopia come along with environmental issues.The majority of Ethiopia’s population lives in rural areas, and people living in rural areas are exposed to hunger more than those living in urbanized areas. As their population increases, more carbon dioxide is getting into the air, and as a result their air becomes polluted.
- A new use of an existing technology (e.g. application to a new problem or in a new location)
The first step is to determine what's causing the poverty crisis and what the consequences are. With this strategy we can have a better understanding of the problem and set ourselves in a good position on finding a solution.
The second step is detarine each region's land area and population. There are 9 regions in Ethiopia and we have to do everything one at a time, meaning we have to start with one region that's limited in land and has a higher population than most other regions . In this case I will start my case study on Tigray and Tigray is located in the northern part of Ethiopia.
The third step on finding a solution is working on decreasing the population rate in Tigray. The way we can do this is by having young scholars and food science students go to forgin countries and teach about birth controls and how useful they are in maintaining a healthy family. There is individuals and institution that has the capability of sponsoring students to have a visit on forgin countries.
- Biotechnology / Bioengineering
It serves a whole population in the rural part of Ethiopia.
Several attempts have been made to solve this issue, but the main reason that it did not have an effective outcome is because people did not keep up with the solution for a certain amount of time. They might do it for a couple of months, and try to move to another region but first we have to solve this issue no matter how long it takes in that particular region. We need advanced family planning education and birth control imported to the country. Birth control is rare in rural parts of Ethiopia and people still have severe stereotypes towards birth control . This stereotype includes after taking birth control their infertility rate might decrease. Their single story of birth control needs advanced awareness and this knowledge comes directly from young educated people. In America, there is advanced family learning and birth control. Specialists and medical students should have the responsibility of teaching the world about this new invention and new concepts. Individuals who have the capability of sponsoring students should invest their money covering their expenses and giving them a full ride to forgin countries to teach those in the dark. Investing in people's awareness in Tigray getting them to know about birth control and family planning can change the region by decreasing their population drastically.
My goal is hopefully to erase famine and the poverty history out of Ethiopia using technology.
On the poverty analysis in Ethiopia, the main cause of poverty is drastic population growth after making an analysis on the 1984 poverty crisis. Population growth has controlled social and economic changes in Ethiopia. Since the poverty crisis has impacted many families, it's still a pretty sensitive topic to discuss in between societies. As a result people in rural areas still didn't get a strong response from their government and not a lot of people aren't even stable enough to help out those indeed. The main source to help out Ethiopia is by having diasporas to invest in those places and give young scholars the ability to teach about family planning and birth controls, and then after we control the population rate we can move to healing the environment. Disporasas should be able to cover all the expenses of students. This idea might be hard to even plan out , but if we work together to find all the disopras and qualified people I believe that we can cure the poverty crisis in a short amount of time.
Planning out things step by step will help us to be more organized in investing in those countries, and it will help us carve out good planning for a particular region that needs the most help.
I have family in Ethiopia and I have discussed my solutions with them, which they agreed with and told me that it was great strategy that I have.
In 1984, the poverty crisis dominated rural parts of Ethiopia. This unexpected crisis killed over a million people. Families' lifestyle during that time was sustained until the crisis occurred.
The final step of fighting hunger in Ethiopia would be irrigation. Now we have reduced the population, we know that the land and the amount of people are in balance. We plant trees to heal the environmental problems. Know we have strategic laws so people don't cut down trees unnecessarily. In order to grow the trees we planted earlier, we need a technique where we collect water in one place and distribute it when it's necessary which brings us to the idea of irrigation . In Ethiopia, Tigray region it is difficult to get water efficiently, and when the opportunity comes and it's raining we have to keep the rain prevently in one place so that farmers can use it whenever their crops need water. Irrigation is a new technique of farming and people in Tigray don't have much awareness about it. They will rely on the rain in the winter and when the rain disappears for natural purposes there is no second option but people will experience poverty.
Tigray has dry environmental conditions. People have deforested the trees for living purposes. As people deforest the trees the water cycle is the main factor to be impacted. If rain falls in that region it is seen as if it is a miracle that will happen once in a lifetime. This puts a lot of pressure on the land not to grow any crops given. Water plays a crucial factor in growing any crop, and this natural resource can be damaged anytime by human activities. Planting new trees is a great idea for recovering dry farming lands. Deforesting woods should be considered a crime. When people deforest woods, there should be a law that should force them to plant a new tree replacing the one they cut down brutally. Not only plant it but also give the crop its basic needs for at least 3 months and if people fail to do this law they will have to pay 1000 Birr to the government. This new law will show society how deforesting trees can give us a long lasting problem. People will start to give more attention to growing new trees to recover from their environmental problems.
I have turned in my project proposal to the world food prize and they seemed to like it, which they called me the "Borlaug scholar". Hopefully implementing this solution when the pandemic sustained in Ethiopia.
Wold food prize and the University of Minnesota. I have presented my solutions in both institutions and they were encouraging of youth and their finidings.
- Yes
I believe that I have done one of the biggest challenges in the world which are famine. I have written a research paper about my project and world know institutions, "World Food Prize" appreciated me by giving me scholarship money to low state university as well as a scholarship fund in the University of Minnesota college of food sciences. This kind of prize is defined made for girls who have a true passion for what they're doing and motivate them to do even more challenges?
- Yes
Getting this acknowledged from the world know the university with a prize will definitely help me to cooperate those solutions in the real world. I have presented in the Unversity of Minnesota and the world food prize conference, which they liked what I presented.