SLC-S29/W3-“Thinking and Ideas!| Seeing Problems Differently!”

Thanks to @ninapenda for this contest. It affords everyone participating the privilege of sitting down with their minds which is not common in today’s world of bustle.

Source

Identify one everyday problem in your community or country and explain some steps in solving them.

The problem I most emphasize with is Food scarcity, hunger and starvation because it’s very possible to see a well dressed man who is hungry and like they say, hungry men are angry men.
Here are a few steps I’d take in solving hunger.

1. I’d invest In agriculture by setting up well monitored empowerment schemes with good incentives that will lure the people back to farming.

a) Giving grants and loans to small and medium scale farmers ( this involves crop and poultry farmers) so they can plant and produce more goods. New farmers are given grants /loans to help them start and stabilize for the first few years of farming.

b) Source and Provide viable and quality seeds: this will be shared to farmers to help the farming process.

C) Set up good storage system for the produce: Research shows that 80% of our produce are perishable goods which get spoilt due to poor storage facilities. Good storage warehouses built and fully equipped to store farm produce like fresh tomatoes, and the like, will to a great level solve this issue.

d) I’ll tighten up security so that agriculture can thrive. Farmers won’t worry so much about thieves carting away their farm produce.

These steps listed out will help to drastically cut down on importation of goods, encourage more people into agriculture and greatly reduce the cost of feeding which is a big issue today. This will also boast the economy as the most imported things are food items.

Why do you think this problem still exists despite many people noticing it?

1. Heavy funds are needed to offer a lasting solution to this issue and individuals can’t pool it by themselves.
2. Lack of proper incentives by the government to encourage more people into agriculture.
3. Insecurity: people’s produce can be carted away easily by thieves.
4. The over importance placed on blue and white collar jobs while farming is seen as old people’s work.
5. Lack of good storage facilities for the people who’ve even ventured into large scale food production.

The strength of any community is the youths, but when youths are encouraged to seek blue collar employments and abandon the farms, the consequence is food scarcity and the nation suffers it.

In your opinion, what is the most misunderstood part of this problem?

The problem of access, distribution and inequality. I’ll explain this.

Source

1.Access: How soon can food get to those who need it??
What channels or bottlenecks must it pass through to get to these people and are these “roadblocks” easily affordable or expensive???
I’ve heard of instances of trucks full of perishable goods being stopped and kept because of issues of border passage, by the time these issues are cleared, the food items may be spoilt.

1. Distribution:How is food shared??
   What are the channels that determine its movement?? ?? Things like conflicts, instabilities and insecurity in certain areas can greatly affect distribution.

1. Inequality: People may live very close to food but lack the money to buy it. Also, lack of proper infrastructure on the part of government to ensure that these foods are evenly spread out.

If you could change one mindset related to this issue, what would it be?

I’d try to move people away from the mindset of “we don’t have enough” to “how can we adequately produce, preserve and equally distribute the one we already have.
I’d do this by creating systems or structures that are well monitored and work in addressing these issues. For instance during the drought in Egypt, the Egyptians survived because men had the foresight to properly store, preserve and evenly distribute the goods they harvested during the season of plenty.

We have a global crisis on our hands, because like I said earlier, people may not be visibly starving, but they may be malnourished. This causes a domino effect on their ability to learn, and understand, poor immune systems that can easily be wiped out by the smallest of sickness and disease and causes more insecurity as the little food seen is either scrambled for or taken by violence, whichever method works better.
I invite @okokon @gabriella26 and @blessedlife to participate in this contest.