8/6/2019 Geog Assignment

1/2

Sharon Akosua Melomey

Geography Assignment

To what extent can free trade help alleviate food shortages in a developing nation.

Free trade is the free movement of goods across borders. Free trade is a concept brought about by

the WTO in an attempt to help developing countries solve their problems of development and food

shortage. Food shortage is when the food produced by a country is not enough to feed the

population of a country. It is common in developing countries because of their lack of technology in

producing on a large scale.

Free Trade has contributed a lot to development. This is because it has helped reduce the concept of

favoured countries. This means that all countries have an equal chance in exporting their produce to

other countries. In Ghana, For instance, because of free trade, a lot of food materials are imported

to supplement for the goods we cannot produce. Increase in rice and chicken importation has

increased the number of Ghanaians who eat well. This is because, the goods are sold at a cheap

price such that it is available to everyone.

The imports of the seeds of genetically modified foods and high yielding varieties havecontributed to

the feeding of the increasing population of the country. These genetically modified foods and high

yielding varieties are made in such a way that way that the yield is more than what that plant would

normally produce naturally. Also, these plants can withstand all kinds of weather. This makes it less

possible for drought or too much rain to destroy it making famine a less likely occurrence. The high

yielding varieties take a short time to mature, so a lot of crops can be grown within a short period of

time.

Another way in which free trade has helped reduce food shortage in Ghana is that, it has

encouraged the integration of technology into the Agricultural Sector. This integration also involved

a shift from subsistence farming to large scale production. Integration of technology means that,

there is an increase in output which means that there will be more food available to feed the

growing population.

Free Trade though it brings about an increase in the food available to developing economies, it has

the negative effect of devastating the economy of these countries. For instance, In Ghana, Due to

the fact that farmers are not subsidised, their outputs are expensive. Farmers in developed

economies like America give huge subsidies to their farmers; this makes the cost of their output less

than their production cost.These low cost goods are imported into Ghana cheaply and this makes

the cost on the market way lower that the goods produced by local Ghanaian farmers. A good

example is chicken prices in Ghana. With no one buying the locally produced food because of its high

cost, the farmers will run out of business increasing the level of unemployment making the economy

even worse off.

There are also arguments relating the healthiness of genetically modified foods and high yieldingvarieties. This is because, the genetic material in these plants are changed. The arguments raised are

that these plants can cause harm to us as humans because these foods can cause other bodies to be

unresponsive to certain anti-biotics. Also, the long term effects of consuming these foods are not

known yet. This brings us to the question that should developing countries like Ghana die of Hunger

or should they be supplied with GM foods?

8/6/2019 Geog Assignment

2/2

Sharon Akosua Melomey

Geography Assignment

I believe that GM foods are a necessary evil required to stop nations from starving to death. Andd

that free trade is concept that will help alleviate food shortage in developing economies like Ghana.