Community Gardening in Curbing Food Insecurity (Essay Sample)

Community Gardening
A Food Security Initiative, looking towards Securing the Future
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Community gardening in curbing food insecurity
Executive summary
Characterized by a lack of access to quality, nutritious and sufficient food for human consumption, the profound effects of food insecurity are all the more visible world over. This is because the resultant hunger, starvation and malnutrition may be only short term inadequacies if the possibility of long term impaired human relations due to food scarcity isn’t brought into the fore. Availability, access to, utilization and stability of food and food sources are the cores of food security 1.More than 10% of the US households are faced with food insecurity annually2. Food insecurity arises due to various causes that include; low income which makes it difficult to purchase enough food, ignorance that predisposes one to poor farming methods, adverse climatic conditions like drought that impairs crop production and also the distance covered in order to access food3. The paper therefore sheds light on one of the mechanisms that can be used to curb or well even prevent the increasing emergence of food insecurity as a threat to existence of mankind.
Community gardening, which as we shall see provides an important avenue for dealing with the food insecurity menace, refers to the collectivization of work on a single land portion by a group of community members4, where mostly fruits and vegetables are grown. It has various aims the main being to increase fruit and vegetable production and this has greatly impacted on the decreased dependence on processed food bought on shops. Food accessibility is also guaranteed for the area members, mainly the low income earners who could not access modern agricultural equipment. The collectivization has been noted to improve on the output for labor is distributed. Other benefits conferred by the same include environmental conservation and improvement in terms of appearance. It is worthwhile noting that fruit and vegetable availability has greatly impacted on the health status of the community despite of the health hazards related to urbanization and that the potential reduction in the rates of cardiovascular diseases and malnutrition is largely attributed to the nutritive values possessed by fruits and vegetables4.
Scope of the problem
That deaths, poor health and social misunderstanding are some of the negative issues that stem from food inadequacy or even its total absence within a population is no longer in question. With food being the fuel that drives the energy run engines, in this case our bodies, adverse consequences ensue when the fuel goes missing and the body cannot function without it. To drive this bit into perspective, food security was long mooted to be an issue of concern years back where suggestions that the ballooning world population, coupled with an urbanization on an upward trajectory would conspire to rid mankind of arable land from which produces could be met. And behold, the ‘prophecy’ has come to see the light of day.
With majority of the world population living below the poverty line, adverse changes in the business arena places them at risk of missing out on basic needs, notably food 5. According to the state of food security and nutrition in the world 6, the number of chronically undernourished people in the world was estimated at 815 million in 2016, with 155million children under five still suffering from stunted growth and 52 million enduring wasting. Such is the dire situation of food inadequacy that comorbidities such as anemia, malnutrition and deficiency diseases have been on the rise. The situation is particularly alarming in Sub-Saharan Africa and majority of Asia.
Notably too, food insecurity and conflict/regional instability appear to play an enhancement role in each other’s existence. Strikingly evident, climate impact notwithstanding, is that the hard hit regions of the world in terms of food security are the conflict prone areas of the Middle East, and Africa 7.This arises not only because of the instability that renders conducting meaningful economic activities a serious risk to one’s life, but also because ravaging conflict emotionally affects and physically incapacitates individuals to the point of them not being able participate in food production. Role of conflict as a driver of food crisis is thus evident. In the same vein, food scarcity can set up a cascade of infighting as individuals tend to grapple with whatever is available to sustain their existence. This, therefore implies that food insecurity can potentially morph into one of the unmanageable conflicts of our time if not given the appropriate attention 8. All this paints the picture that addressing food security requires an all-round approach of humanitarian aid, peace sustainability and long term goals. Community gardening lies in the latter.
Sustainable Development Goal-2 (SDG 2) forms a call for countries to come together in facing nutrition, hunger, food security and sustainable agriculture, for the purpose of securing our food future. 13-18 million people die from hunger and malnutrition annually in developing countries 9. While the moral and humanitarian threats of food security seems the most immediate in terms of addressing as they contrive to push the human race to the precipice of disaster, the long term developmental threat shouldn’t be ignored 10. A physically crippled and emotionally disabled populace, reeling from the hard hitting effects of food scarcity will definitely have no mind no invest or develop anything both due to the physical inadequacies and absent justifiable reason to do the same, the circumstances withstanding. In the long run therefore, investments disappear, initiating a vicious cycle of lack of basic needs, which if not tamed, inevitably ends with demise of the afflicted persons 11.
Policy analysis
Food insecurity is a major cause of poor health and mental development in both adults and children, social problems and also deaths. Governments have greatly tried to intervene by deploying various measures to curb food insecurity but it is still a major problem experienced by about 11.1 % of households12. The government has spent over 50 billion dollars yearly in providing help in the form of nutrition programs .This is done by supplementing children and women’s diet through the provision of multivitamin and mineral products, botanical herbs and hydration or energy drinks. Despite the numerous efforts, food insecurity still affects about 6% of the population in the US with children being the most affected. This predisposes them to poor development and mental health status thus underperformance in schools13. The economy being steady and food production being high to the extent of exportation, food insecurity should not be a problem. The government intervention procedures fail to curb food insecurity due to secondary factors like social and economic differences among households. This includes lack of formal education, low income, lack of access to health care and information and poor living conditions like poor housing.
A change of approach could basically help in reducing the levels of food insecurity. A proper method that addresses the fundamental basics of food insecurity should be designed. A policy that focuses on increasing food availability, affordability, access and quality should be implemented. Championing for Community gardening as method of increasing fruit and vegetable supply can help in improving food security. Community gardening entails collective working in a community garden14. A community garden is a single piece of land that members of the community collectively work on it. It entails the utilization of public or private land individually or shared among members. The main crops produced include; fruits, vegetables and other plants that improve land appearances although crop rotation can be done. The main aims being to improve food availability, environmental conservation and bringing about community social integration, cooperation and unity. There are various types of community gardens that include small victory gardens where vegetables are grown in small plots, large projects whose aim is to preserve the environment and smaller street based zones where flowers are grown majorly to improve the area appearance .Community individuals all participate in tending the garden from land clearing, cultivation, planting to crop harvesting Ownership, access and management of community gardens is done either publicly or the government though as with no intentions of making profits. Community gardening for fruit and vegetable production is mainly done in the urban areas to improve on food accessibility.
Community gardening to improve on vegetable and fruit production has proved effective in reducing food insecurity levels. First food accessibility is improved. Initially, the accessibility to quality fruits and vegetables proved difficult to urban dwellers but upon the start of community gardening most households testified to be accessing the produces more easily. Most of the community members no longer depend on the processed foodstuffs from the shops. Low income earners who initially could not afford fruits and vegetables can afford the produces from the gardens. Quality of the produces is also assured as for it comes directly from the gardens in the neighborhood. Environmental issues such as soil, air and land pollution can now be curbed. Grown crops have been noted to prevent soil erosion. Most of home degradable wastes used as manure in crop producti...