Blog 6: Using Big Data to Prevent World Hunger

Using Big Data to Prevent World Hunger

The article entitled "Using Big Data to Prevent World Hunger" discusses how hunger is one of the two main factors of extreme poverty; the other being famine. Just months ago, the Global Hunger Index reported that nineteen countries experience hunger to severe levels, in which they refer to it as "alarming" or "extremely alarming". Of these people, one out of every eight had experienced a chronic level of undernourishment between the years of 2010-2012. In order for farmers to get a big lead on lessening world hunger and increasing their food supply, are by giving not only farmers, but also scientists and entrepreneurs’ unlimited access to agricultural big data. Big data's contributions has the potential to increase crop yields by informing farmers when it's best to plant, manage, and harvest crops. Big data also covers rainfall levels, pest and disease control, projected prices at local markets, and plant genomics and weather conditions. The Climate Corporation is a branch from big data which could ensure farmers the best time to spray fields for pests. One of the major goals of this project is to aid Africa, who is listed as the world’s worst performing agricultural producer, to better productivity. France is making contributions as well, hoping to release an app granting African farmers with the ability to discover their soil type, give directions as to how each field is to be planted and harvested, and provide a place where they’re able to purchase planting seeds locally. 


 As it has been made completely obvious, hunger is clearly a vital contributor to extreme poverty all over the world. There is no town, city, state, or country that suffers from poverty without hunger being a key issue. We often time hear about hunger in Africa. Sometimes it seems as if Africa is the only country/continent that has such a huge epidemic. That's because of the nineteen countries who have extreme levels of hunger, Africa ranks at number one. It's good to see that countries other than the United States are trying to lessen this problem. It is also good to see that this agricultural big data has the potential to increase the food supply in so many countries across the world. This would be great for countries with failing economies. Maybe sharing this data would possibly increase wealth across the world. Eventually, it would lessen the billions of dollars we spend yearly providing food to underdeveloped countries. Being that third world countries suffer from social stratification, I do believe this could be a turning point and there won't be such a huge divide between the rich and poor countries if that data is used correctly. This could produce  more stable economies due to the buying, selling, and trading of goods that would all come overtime.








 http://cloudtweaks.com/2014/03/using-big-data-prevent-world-hunger/