News articles:
The three articles I read were: “Severe Drought is Killing Crops and Livestock in Panama” by Costa Rica Star’s Maria M. Mur, “Drought inflicts mounting losses to crops in South Africa's Western Cape” by Wendell Roelf at Reuters, and “Argentina combats drought with genetic tech” by Joel Richards. Most of my sources focus on Africa and its water deprivation, but these three articles include South America as well. In Panama, there are 45 sources of water, 30 have extremely low water levels. Yield has fallen by almost half in recent years due to this lack of water. I chose this article to include areas we often don’t think about. Droughts aren’t exclusive to California or Africa; they exist everywhere. The photos in the article show animals affected by this scarcity of water, magnifying its impact to include more than simply farmers. The article discussing Argentina is more optimistic. It discusses a new transgenic technology that elongates the periods of time crops can withstand without water. The author points out the obvious benefit of this technology but also recognizes how long it will take to be actually put in place. China doesn’t allow the sale of transgenic soybeans on Argentina’s part without its approval. This is important for showing that there is hope for saving a problem afflicting others all over the world. Implementing Argentina’s advances in other countries may become the most popular method of water preservation in the future. The third article goes back to South Africa and the severity of their droughts. This article doesn’t propose many solutions, but it presents statistical information that was absent from the podcast and book I chose. This supplemental information would be beneficial for presenting facts that are grounded in area-specific details regarding the drought. Proposing solutions ourselves would be the next step for us to take after presenting this information, using all three articles to show the widespread nature of the lack of water. Podcast: I chose an NPR podcast titled “South African Farmers Lose Crops And Workers Amid Crippling Drought.” This podcast focuses on Tony Largier, a farmer in South Africa’s Western Cape province. Tony gets his water from a nearby dam which is shared by multiple villages and cities in Cape Town. Yet the dam is at a thirteen percent capacity due to the recent drought that has occupied the area. Despite this, Tony and other local farmers have a greater concern. Much of the water, which is already not enough, is being carried to the city to avoid Day Zero. Local farmers are complaining because their areas are just as deserving of this water supply as those residing in the city of Cape Town. Many people believe that this movement of water isn’t very effective to begin with, deeming it as a mere distraction to the actual state that South Africa’s agricultural system is currently in. This podcast is a great example of what certain countries are doing to prevent complete water deprivation and how those actions are hurting farmers. I hope that we are able to turn our attention to those who have to depend on water in order to make a living. Despite the natural depletion of this resource, additional steps are being taken that further harm these farmers and their livelihood. Other solutions discussed in the podcast are boreholes, which are small wells created by machines to dig up water. Proposing the creation of these in areas dependent on the dam’s scarce supply of water can be a great way to reduce this problem. I think this podcast would be a great way for us to show how different, smaller areas of the world are dealing with same problems as smaller farmers in the US. Book: The book I chose is titled Transforming South African Agriculture by Ann Seidman. Although the book seems dated since it was written in 1992, this problem is still relevant today, almost identical. The current agricultural state in Swaziland, Africa is an example of how people’s right to water has been compromised for the sake of colonial expansion. In the eighth chapter of the book, the agricultural commercial sector is described to have most of the farmland available in the region. These areas have been favored due to their predominately white population, while areas of Swazi Africans have been deprived of water rights. The introduction of the book introduces the general agricultural struggle in South Africa, while this specific chapter offers a solution to this lack of water that could be easily fixed. It shows charts of crops local to the region such as pineapple, cotton, sugar cane, tobacco, and oranges, with how much crop area they’re given and the quantity produced. European farm owners are favored over Swazi landowners. This could be reversed through proper distribution and money levying that could give everyone rights to water. The Swazi Nation’s farms occupy the largest percentage of the population and these smaller farmers rely on their crops to yield profit and food. Yet without a certain political allegiance with Europe, these small landholders are not given water rights the same way others are. The chapter ends with the discussion of subsistence agriculture. Subsistence agriculture is no longer practical in Swaziland, deeming the term as entirely unrealistic. This is a great starting point for solutions. Setting a goal of making farming self-sufficient again would put the farmers’ needs first. Since water is the main reason for these problems, government cooperation becomes necessary for ensuring farmers’ access to it. Summary: This topic is interesting to approach from different perspectives, which is why we chose different parts of the world to explore initially. Water is the most vital resource to our wellbeing, yet it’s the most abused as well. Due to climate change and natural causes, countries in almost every continent are poverty-stricken due to their lack of access to clean water. We aim to show the implications of water not only on individuals in their homes, but also the natural scarcity of water and how it affects agriculture in different parts of the world. Droughts have been associated with certain parts of the world for so long that it’s often hard to imagine that any change can be implemented in those areas. Yet the government has a huge role in why farmers and families are being deprived of living properly due to structural flaws that have effects on the country’s agricultural system as a whole. It would be essential to not only point out these flaws in our project, but to also illustrate the ways in which changes can be implemented on a realistic scale. How is a certain government, whether in Africa, South America, North America, Europe, or Asia responsible for its country’s water crisis? What can be done by these countries collaboratively to use science to advance and help one another? The book I chose discusses a very specific region. By focusing on areas that are often neglected, recognition of a state’s water crisis becomes more plausible and real. This would be great to use as a starting point. In order to appeal to our audience, we will need to extend these solutions to the US. Other countries become models for us to follow and learn them. The water crisis will become viewed as something urgent and approachable, which is the only way to go about solving this problem. The issue will have to be approached with optimism based upon an understanding of the reality of things.
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