Definition of the issue
As the name suggests, food aid during disasters entails providing people with food assistance during a disaster. The disaster could be wildfires, landslides, earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, or drought. Disasters have severe consequences, including the destruction of existing food and infrastructure. Disasters also destroy the means to earn a livelihood, thus the need to consider the victims and provide them with food aid. Food is a vital part of humanitarian aid after any disaster. Emergency food aid has been categorized as the dominant humanitarian response to food insecurity caused by disasters (Jackson, 2019). Food gives the victims of a disaster some type of immediate relief and helps in recovering from distress, illness, and injuries. However, it is not enough to provide survivors with food. It is essential to ensure that the victims get sufficient nutrition. It is important to note that not all disasters result in food shortages, which are severe enough to have a significant impact on a population’s nutritional status. The nature of nutrition and food problems will depend on the specific disaster type, how long it takes, how big the affected area is, and the population’s nutritional status before the disaster. Earthquakes are characterized by little effect on food supply in the long term. However, disasters such as tsunamis, floods, and hurricanes directly impact food availability by destroying stored food, killing domestic animals and livestock, and ravaging crops. Disasters end up disorganizing economic routines in a country.
In a nutshell, food aid during disasters plays a pivotal role. For example, it prevents malnutrition in the victims of the disaster. It is, however, crucial to organize how cases of malnutrition will be treated and managed that were prevalent before the disaster or which will emerge during aid. Effective aid programs will involve steps such as estimating the amount of food available, calculating the affected population’s dietary needs, and determining the food rations based on the population’s characteristics and the estimated time the disaster’s effects will last.
Example of the topic in a country
Food aid during disasters can be best analyzed in Turkey. Today, Turkey is among the most disaster-prone countries worldwide. Food aid during a disaster is an essential humanitarian service that helps the victims of a disaster survive and also maintain their health. When providing disaster victims with food aid, there are some factors to consider. For example, the food provided must have a long shelf life. This will ensure that the food does not go bad quickly. The provided food must also be safe and nutritious. Nutritious means the food must have all the essential nutrients. It would be wrong to give disaster victims food that is already expired or unsafe. Earthquakes are a common disaster in Turkey. In fact, it is one of the countries with the most powerful seismic activity worldwide. Two earthquakes hit the country in 2023. Eleven provinces were affected by the earthquakes. The death toll from the earthquakes was more than fifty thousand people (Aydin et al., 2024). This high number was mainly due to substandard construction practices and old structures in the country. Also, more than two million in the affected provinces were hit by shelter and food problems right after the earthquakes. Considering the high number of victims, there was an urgent and significant need for shelter and food after those two earthquakes. According to the hierarchy of needs by Maslow, the system had totally collapsed, making food an urgent need for disaster victims. Relief food during disasters is one of the obvious responses to help the victims. We can review food aid in two stages. The first stage is where food is gathered and sent to the affected areas as quickly as possible. The second stage has to do with the aid’s content and security, which require proper handling.
Importance of studying the issue
It is important to study food aid during disasters. For example, studying the issue will help in understanding how the status of food and nutrition is affected by disasters, the purpose of food aid, the steps to be followed to ensure the effectiveness of a food aid program, the priorities of the food aid during a disaster, how to properly manage food supplies, how to ensure an appropriate diet, how to calculate food aid rations, factors to consider when preparing food rations, among other essential aspects. For example, studying food aid will enable us to learn some basics, such as the need to ensure the food has a long shelf life and is nutritious. Food must also be appropriate. For example, there is food appropriate for breastfeeding mothers (Wentworth, 2020). Disasters are a common occurrence today, thus the need to be prepared for the aftermath, one of which is acute food shortage. It, therefore, makes sense to study food aid during disasters to be well prepared. It is, therefore, essential to teach people, for example, in schools, about food aid during disasters and the role they can play in assisting the victims.
References
Aydın, A., Yüceer, M., Ulugergerli, E. U., & Caner, C. (2024). Improving food security as disaster relief using intermediate moisture foods and active packaging technologies. Applied Food Research, 4(1), 100378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.afres.2023.100378
Jackson, G. (2019). The influence of emergency food aid on the causal disaster vulnerability of Indigenous food systems. Agriculture and Human Values, 37(3), 761-777. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-10006-7
Wentworth, C. (2020). Unhealthy aid: Food security programming and disaster responses to Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu. In Anthropological Forum (Vol. 30, No. 1-2, pp. 73-90). Routledge.
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