Food+Security+Memo

Lesson: the links between agriculture, international reliance for food imports, and malnourishment Activity that gets to the question of: What does it mean when a country has high malnourishment and high reliance on agriculture? Where is the food going? What does it mean if a country has low reliance on agriculture internally and a large number of agricultural imports? Part 1:The Economy and Agriculture Use this link to go to the Encyclopedia of Earth. [] Search for your country and scroll down its article to the Agriculture section. Next, go to the CIA World Factbook and find your country in the scroll down menu. [] Part 2: Imports, Exports, and Consumption Now go to this link for Index Mundi and click on your country from the list on the right. [] Pick one or two of the "commodities" on the left that match up with your country's agricultural products. The measurement of commodities is in millions of tons. Compare the "Imports" Graph with the "Exports" graph for this product. Next, look at the Industrial Domestic Consumption for this product. Industrial Domestic Consumption is how much the country's population is consuming this product. Record the most recent value. Finally, use the interactive hunger map on this site to learn how prevalent hunger is in your country. [] Read the definitions of Food Security and Food Insecurity.
 * 1)  What are your country's main agricultural products?
 * 2)  Is your country facing any concerns or changes stated in the description? (for example GMOs, increase or decrease in fishing, lack of labor force, etc.)
 * 1)  Under Economy, go to GDP. What percentage of your country's GDP is agriculture?
 * 2)  Look for Labor force by occupation. What percentage of your country's labor force is agriculture?
 * 3)  Based on this, how reliant is your country on its own agriculture?
 * 4)  Look at the list of Imports, further down. Are any of these agricultural products? (including "foodstuffs")
 * 1)  Record the most recent value. Which is higher? Is your country importing or exporting more of this product?
 * 1)  Is your country's population consuming more of this product than is being exported?
 * 2)  What does this mean about your country's use for this agricultural product? (is it feeding its people as much as selling it?)
 * 1)  What percentage of your country's population is undernourished?
 * 1)  What can you say about the relationship between malnourishment in your country and its agricultural system; what is the state of food security in your country? (for example, What does a lack of agriculture and prevalent malnourishment say about your country? What does a lack of agriculture, a well-nourished population, and a high number of imports say about your country?)