|
Background information for teachers
From the Making a Meal of It! online
resource
About food
The world
in a supermarket bag
Food and the environment
A Fair Trade alternative
Eating for health
Why are people hungry?
About food
We all need food to live. But food does more than keep us alive.
It provides the energy we need to ensure that our bodies work efficiently,
and provides the essential protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and
minerals which are needed for healthy development. Without food
of sufficient quantity and quality people will become malnourished:
800 million people in the world today are malnourished, whilst two
billion have a diet which is lacking essential vitamins and minerals.
Food also fulfils other important social functions. Family meals
and sharing food with friends can be enjoyable aspects of life.
However, social change means that family meals are now far less
common in the UK than they were in the past, and some people think
they will die out entirely in the next century. More ready-prepared
meals and fast foods, women working outside the home, and changes
in household structure (such as an increase in single-person households)
mean that more food is eaten individually than ever before. Children
can compare eating patterns in their own households and consider
who tends to shop, prepare food, wash up, etc.
The places where we buy our food have changed dramatically in the
UK in the last 50, or even 20, years. Shops specialising in only
one type of product (bakers, grocers, greengrocers, etc) have largely
been replaced by supermarkets and superstores where a huge variety
of household products are available under one roof. Eighty five
per cent of the money spent on food is now spent in supermarkets.
Pupils can consider the effect this has had on their local environment:
closure of small shops and change of building use; the need to travel
to shop and to shop by car; the impact on poorer people who are
unable to afford cars and are forced to shop at expensive local
shops; the environmental impact of large superstores.
The world in a supermarket
bag
Food provides an important link with individuals and communities
in other parts of the world. Children may initially be surprised
that common ‘British’ foods such as bananas, tea, potatoes,
and chocolate are produced in the Caribbean, India, Egypt, and Ghana.
The topic of food therefore provides an excellent learning opportunity
for pupils, enabling them to explore the similarities and differences
between their lives and those of people from producer countries.
They can then go on to look at more complex development issues involved
in the trade in foodstuffs. Why are countries that cannot adequately
feed their own people exporting foodstuffs? Who benefits? What control
do the buyers (the supermarket chains) exert over the producers?
Along with more traditional export crops, UK consumers can now
buy items such as mange-tout from Guatemala, mangoes from South
Africa, paw-paw from Ghana, tuna from Indonesia, fine beans from
Kenya, and starfruit from Malaysia. Although providing more variety
and choice, and enabling us to eat fresh fruit and vegetables all
year round, the presence of these goods on our supermarket shelves
does not necessarily benefit the people who produced them, who may
not be able to afford an adequate or healthy diet themselves.
Why has there been such an expansion in export crops from the South
in the last two decades? One reason is the need for countries to
earn foreign currency to pay off large debts to the countries of
the North, as well as to buy fuel, machinery, and other imported
goods. Many governments in the South have therefore cut subsidies
for the production of staple food crops such as rice and urged farmers
to produce more products to be exported and eaten abroad. In Bangladesh,
for instance, subsistence farmers who used to be able to grow rice
and family foods have been turned off their land to make way for
shrimp farms.
But shifting to exports can threaten a country’s ability to
feed itself. All too often such cash crops do not achieve an adequate
price for the growers, as the trade in export foodstuffs is controlled
by the wealthier countries of the North. Firstly, although the global
trading system operates in a supposedly free market, exports from
the South face a daunting array of tariff barriers (taxes) and non-tariff
barriers (such as quotas) which make their products more expensive
or limit the amount they are allowed to sell in the North. Secondly,
small farmers in the South are unable to dictate their own terms
on the world market and to challenge the power of the companies
and supermarket chains which buy their products. Of the price we
pay for a jar of coffee in the supermarket less than 10 per cent
will go back to the grower or producer. Most of the profit will
be made by the retailer and the middle-men who have processed, transported
or packaged the product.
Food and the environment
The increase in cash crop production in the South also has implications
for the environment. The replacement of traditional small-scale
mixed farming (where a variety of crops and livestock are produced
together) with large-scale, intensive production of one particular
cash crop (monoculture) requires the input of chemical fertilisers
and pesticides. The use of these chemicals is often unregulated
and may be damaging to the health of agricultural workers, as well
as damaging to the soil. Artificial fertilisers also tend to degrade
the soil so that a greater application of expensive chemicals is
then needed to produce an adequate crop.
In the North most of our food is already produced intensively on
large, highly mechanised farms which have made a significant impact
on the environment. Chemical pesticides and fertilisers run off
farm land and can leach into rivers and waterways; the move to huge
fields of cereal crops has destroyed hedgerows and so been damaging
to wildlife; factory-style production of meat, eggs and dairy products
is now the norm. These methods ensure that foodstuffs are produced
at a lower price for the consumer, enabling many people to eat a
‘better’ diet. Children may consider, however, the effect
this has on food quality and animal welfare. There is now a growing
interest in organic farming (farming without the use of chemical
fertilisers and pesticides) but at the moment organic foodstuffs
are still expensive and not widely available.
A Fair Trade alternative
There is also now a growing demand by consumers for fairly-traded
products, including food products. More and more people want to
know that the tea or coffee or honey or sugar which they buy has
been produced without exploitation, and that the farmers who grew
or processed the product in the South received a fair price for
their work.
Through various Fair Trade initiatives, Oxfam has been campaigning
since 1965 for a better deal for producers in the South. By paying
reasonable prices, and buying through organisations which are organised
for the benefit of the producers, it helps to tackle the problems
of poverty and hunger. Oxfam also works with producers, helping
them to improve their skills and develop their small-scale enterprises.
Eating for health
The Health Education Authority recommends these guidelines for
healthy eating.
Enjoy your food. Eat a variety of different foods. Eat the right amount to be a healthy weight. Eat plenty of foods rich in starch (carbohydrates)
and fibre. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables. Don’t eat too many foods that contain
a lot of fat. Don’t have sugary foods and drinks too
often.
Why are people hungry?
Global food supplies have more than doubled in the past 40 years,
surpassing the rate of population growth. So why is it that 18 million
people (mainly women and children) still die of starvation each
year and one-third of the world’s population are malnourished?
Pupils may assume that people are hungry because there is a famine,
there are too many people to feed, it does not rain in Africa, or
the world cannot produce enough food, but in fact it is a question
of the distribution of resources: people, whether in the UK or the
countries of the South, are hungry because they lack the resources
(money or land) to be able to feed themselves adequately.
It
is becoming increasingly common to see people in the UK
begging outside supermarkets which are packed with food
they do not have the money to buy. At the same time, supermarkets
and shops in the UK throw away more than £350 million
worth of food a year, much of it perfectly edible. |
During
the Ethiopian famine of 1984 there was plenty of food
available in the country – for those with money to
pay for it. |
|
Cool Planet for Teachers has moved
