Zimbabwe, and the on going drought

My name is J.N, and I take a class at GCE Lab school called Food for Thought. We learn about how food has affected history, and how it affect today. We had gone to multiple field experiences such as French Market Cafe, as well as Uncommon Ground Rooftop Garden. Right now, we are in our unit called Death, which faces the consequences of the results of food empires and monocultures. For an assignment, we had to research and try to create a script that involves a problem/solution in agriculture and the food world trade in general. So for my project, I decided to research Zimbabwe, since it has high drought rates that causes economical crises and political crises. There has been multiple problems/struggles in this assignment. The main two were to find research for a third solution, as well as trying to get better wording. There was also problems with the recording that was needed for the assignment, mainly trying to read off the script as well as trying to do less stuttering as possible. Overall, I believe it is a good project do to the effort in research. The original script is below the video, as well as all the citations. I hope you enjoy the video, as well as find the script to be informational.

I need to ask you all this simple question. Do you know why we give/donate to places such as Africa or Asia, or any other country. Why they can’t solve their own problems.
Well, the reason being is that in continents such as Africa, has had multiple droughts that had lead to the deaths of millions, mainly because decrease of crops and food storage. One of the greatest examples of this devastation would be the country of Zimbabwe, who had about 5 million people face food shortages, as well as people facing poverty due to those droughts. Which is why I believe climate change is a serious problem, and has create both poverty, and hunger. So today, I will be talking about suggestion that could be able to help Zimbabwe.

Nearly five million people in Zimbabwe - half of the country's rural population - will need assistance by next year as a result of the ongoing drought in southern Africa,”- United Nations

There are multiple reasons on why this saying is true. One being is that climate change can tire out and even harm workers with extreme heat. In outsideonline.com, the average human being works best in a temperature of 70-77 degrees fahrenheit. Droughts, on the other hand, release high temperatures that are extremely dangerous to people. At best, workers in Zimbabwe are experiencing heat that is about 90 degrees fahrenheit. This could lead to illnesses, stress disorders, to even heat distortion. Then there is the main problem that climate change also affect on plants with no rainfall. In safaribookings.com, there is little to no water in Zimbabwe, probably do to droughts. For crops such as corn, there needs to be about .10 inches of water per day(maturity). But with lack of water, it will simply dry out and die(aganytime.com). Without crops, Zimbabwe faces debt, as well as poverty. In aljazeera.com states “The government(Zimbabwe) says it is trying to buy grain from neighbouring countries” as well as "requires a total of [$1.57bn] with effect from February to December 2016". Since the government is now owing debt, it doesn't have a high success rate to solve the problem, Zimbabwe citizens are threatening to overrun the government, believing that government official aren’t best suited for this problem.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that there has been drought. Zimbabwe has had multiple in the past. The problem is that with the assistance of CO2 and fossil fuel emissions, drought are more frequent and dangerous.

If you take upon the fact that a lot of times climate change cause a large amount harm to most civilizations, it isn’t surprising that Zimbabwe is being ruined because of ongoing drought. The book, Empires of Food, states “Droughts have always been an existential problem for agricultural societies since they first appeared”pg104. One example would be the Romans, which the book also states“The seventeenth Century, on the other hand, was a entirely less comfortable, with a little Ice Age stunning diets across the world and driving irritable masses of war”pg8 .  Another example would be the Mayans, which was one of the strongest civilizations (until the Spanish came), had to “filtered into the wetter highlands, where the remained”pg 104, as well as “abandoning their stone cities”pg104 due to droughts.

Most of the time, these civilizations didn’t necessarily faced the problem head on, but rather tried to find solutions that wouldn’t prevent it if it happened again. These solutions also at certain times made things much worse for the civilization. As I previously stated, what the Romans did was that they created wars in order to gain land and resources, while the Mayans migrated from their original area, and left behind their cities. The results were was that multiple wars caused multiple deaths, and leaving behind cites also meant rebuilding everything and forced more labor onto people. What we can learn from these two civilizations is that it is better to face the problem rather than try to dodge it. To be fair, these civilizations didn’t have much of a choice because they weren’t technologically ready to grow their crops anywhere, nor they didn’t have access to gain crops that worked with droughts rather than against them. Zimbabwe on the other hand does have a chance in order to gain crops that are farther away, as well as create buildings that could be used to grow crops. Yet, according to aljazeera.com, the government is only investing on “trying to buy grain from neighbouring countries” which is still not facing the problem in general.

There are at least three things Zimbabwe can do in order to solve their crises on droughts ruining crops.

Green houses- What the government can do is that it could be able to invest in greenhouses for small communities rather than focusing on the country in whole. This would allow the average crops to grow for minile people, that couldn’t be heavily affected by the drought. Of course, there are some problems with greenhouse, which is mainly the expense. Homeadvisor.com states that the average greenhouse is about 13,000 dollars, and is way too small for multiple people. Luckily, some college students were able to create a greenhouse that was twice the size and half as much. De Reus said the Penn State greenhouse uses a standard hoop-house configuration that. The greenhouse “consists of polypropylene random copolymer pipes, plastic glazing and lumber”(psu.edu). Also, the money that was given to Zimbabwe to help with human needs were 1.5 billion, and with the help of multiple charities, I believe that a possible solution would be to take greenhouse for local communities.

Drought plants-. Another suggestion I have is to use plants that support conditions of heat more rather than deny it. There is an organization known as CGIAR that is working on the climate crises, and has even successfully been able to create crops that are resistant to drought. They claim in an article “One way in which they(CGIAR) have responded successfully to the challenge is by developing varieties of major food crops that are drought tolerant or escape drought through early maturity”.  The only problem is that in the website, circleofblue.0rg, states “Zimbabwe’s restriction on the importation of genetically modified crops, limiting the amount of corn and other grains it can procure from South Africa, another regional exporter.” With that in mind, the government can either give up on the restriction for genetically modified plants for now, or try finding other ways to grow crops.


Stop Droughts- The final option have is that since there are some complex problems with GMOs, what the government can do is that with the UN(United Nations) help, I believe what they can do is they could be able to create a restriction or minimize the amount of smog that creates climate change. Of course, there are multiple problems, including that jobs would be loss and that it would take a large amount of time before the high end droughts are finished. So I believe this solution is an unrealistic one, while the first two are realistic.


The problem is more complex than I stated it to be. The drought create so many problems that the people of Zimbabwe are even questioning, and are at the verge of overthrowing the government. But still, I personally believe that if the government could focus on more micro ideas such as investing in greenhouse or buying drought surviving crops for farmers. If they do, then they might have a chance of surviving future droughts. These solutions would not only solve for hunger, but poverty, economic growth and decent work, and even sustainable cities and communities. But if the government can’t be able to either afford greenhouse, or still create a ban on GMO plants, then it might be much harder for them to support their citizens, as well as themselves.



Citations

Curtis Chan "Penn State students' affordable greenhouse effort helping African farmers" The Pennsylvania State University  psu.edu  5/23/17

Haru Mutasa "Zimbabwe drought: Five million face food shortage" Al Jazeera Media Network

aljazeera.com/ 5/23/17

Brian Sparks "Drought Update: It’s Spreading, But Greenhouse Growers Continue To Adapt" Greenhouse Grower  greenhousegrower.com 5/23/17

"Sustainable Development Goals" UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME 

undp.org  5/23/17

"TEMPERATURE EXTREMES AND THE WORKPLACE" Communications Workers of America

cwa-union.org  5/23/17

Erin Beresini "What’s The Best Temperature for Productivity?" 40 Outside outsideonline.com
5/23/17

"Zimbabwe- Weather & Climate" SafariBookings   safaribookings.com  5/23/17

"10 Facts About Hunger In Zimbabwe" World Food Programme wfp.org  5/23/7

"Corn Water Use and Irrigation Timing"  AGANYTIME   aganytime.com  5/23/17

Codi Kozacek "Drought-Hit Zimbabwe Unravels Amid Humanitarian, Economic, and Political Crises" Circle of Blue  circleofblue.org/  5/23/17

"How Much Does it Cost to Build a Greenhouse" HomeAdvisor homeadvisor.com  5/23/17

"Drought-Tolerant Crops for Drylands"  CGIAR cgiar.org  5/23/17

Evan Fraser &Andrew Rimas "Empires of Food" Counterpoint  4/29/17